


The President's Son

by RockSaltAndRoll



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Blow Jobs, Dirty Talk, Fluff and Angst, Frottage, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-02
Updated: 2014-06-07
Packaged: 2018-01-21 15:43:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 60,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1555589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RockSaltAndRoll/pseuds/RockSaltAndRoll
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Agent Steve Rogers is assigned to protect President Barnes' son, Bucky - a troubled war veteran with a penchant for causing havoc. Bucky is a war hero but keeps veering to the path of self destruction, and Steve is sure as hell doesn't want to get fired over this shit. His job is to protect Bucky, even from himself.</p><p>IT OPENS UP A LITTLE DARK AND TWISTY! Like, the opening scene is torture. And there is a reference to self-destructive behaviour a little further in. But it’s meant to be generally Bucky being a cute little shit and Steve being completely harassed, and a little angst and a bit of fluff and most definitely some smut. Rating upped to Explicit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_He screamed, the harsh, shrill sound echoing off the dry stone walls and going on forever. They could hear him down the halls, curled up in their bare cells with their hands covering their ears to block out the sound that always lasted for hours at a time._

_It was always the same – beatings with hard boots and wooden sticks. The bones in his feet had been broken through continuous whipping and he could no longer stand or bear weight. Then it was the water. Oh, how he feared water. There were a million ways to torture somebody with this life-giving liquid._

_Stripped naked on the hard, dusty floor with skin and limbs still throbbing from blows, buckets of ice-cold water were dumped over his head. To be honest, this part was almost comfortable compared to everything else he knew he would have to endure, the temperature briefly numbing the pain and the stinging wounds that opened up day after day. The water would mix with the dirt and his flailing limbs would churn it into mud that caked his skin, sand scratching at cuts and becoming ingrained, infected, swollen, and hot._

_Sometimes they would hold his head down underwater in a bucket, waiting until his lungs filled with water and he blacked out, only to be revived moments later, coughing and spluttering for it to start all over again. Other times they pinned him down in the sandy mud and held a towel over his face, slowly soaking it with water, and this was worse than actually drowning because there was no respite from the panic and the terror._

_And then there were the times where they tied him down to a chair and put his broken feet into that bucket full of water and administered small electric currents. This one was definitely the worst, because it always came after everything else. It was like every nerve in his body was on fire and his throat burned from screaming so much that his voice eventually failed him._

_All the while, he would babble the same thing – name, rank, serial number. The only things a soldier was allowed to reveal under interrogation. If he’d had anything else to give them, he would have. He would have done anything, said anything to make them stop but he didn’t know anything. It didn’t matter. They didn’t do it to him to get information – they did it to him because of who he was. And he wished to God, if there was a God – right at the point where his muscles failed him and he was covered in his own mess once again – that he was anybody else. Anybody but the President’s son._

~

Bucky woke up screaming and covered in an ice-cold sweat once again, his legs tangled in the sheets. A wet, black nose nuzzled at his face in the darkness and he reached out instinctively, hands grasping at short, coarse hair and he gathered the mass that was Boomer, his golden Labrador, to his chest.

He sucked in large lungfuls of air as he leaned his head on the warm, comforting dog until his body stopped trembling and his breathing returned to a normal state.

It wasn’t the first night he’d woken up from dreams like these, that he’d relived the kidnap and torture in Afghanistan - it had been happening for eight months, since his return. For a long time he had pretended that he was okay. Bucky was welcomed back as a hero and had lived life to the full with parties and surrounding himself with beautiful people and expensive things. It had been okay, acceptable, because he was President Barnes’ only son and he was a decorated war veteran who the whole world knew had withstood torture at the hands of the Taliban for three months. He was allowed to blow off a little steam. Bucky Barnes was America’s darling, its brave golden boy and nobody questioned his actions, nobody criticized them.

But if he’s honestly believed that burying himself in drink and drugs and warm bodies would make those three months just go away, he had been sadly mistaken. Bucky had burned out, and it had been messy.

His mother had bought him Boomer and the dog had been Bucky’s lifesaver. The dog sensed unease, agitation and stress and always distracted him from it. Boomer had been there when he woke up screaming from the nightmares so vivid he could feel the marks on his body. He could bury his face in the short, rough hairs and feel the heartbeat of the living creature in his arms and he knew that he was alive and safe with his ever-present guard.

And tomorrow, he would be discharged and would have to go out into the world again and pretend that he was better. He was the President’s son and he had a part to play.

~

Steve Rogers fastened up his top button and sighed. He hated starting a new job. Not that his was a new new job, just a new detail. Today, he would be shadowing James Buchanan Barnes.

The First Son’s old Secret Service detail had been fired for dereliction of duty. Basically, the guy had dropped his guard for thirty seconds and bad things had happened. Steve felt bad for him, but not as badly as he felt for himself, because it could just as easily happen to him. He wasn’t entirely sure if he should thank Natasha for putting his name forward or not.

He combed his hair and remembered his briefing the previous evening with the head of White House security, Nick Fury. Fury was a fearsome figure – not one to cross or to defy. With Fury in charge, you did your job and you did it well or you were out and you would never work again.

“I’m putting you in charge of James Barnes’ security,” Fury had told him. “He gets out of the military hospital at Bathesda in the morning. I want you to drive over, pick him up and bring him back to the White House. You will be that boy’s personal shadow, do you hear me? Where he goes, you go. You follow him into the goddamn toilet of you have to. I want no more accidents like what happened on Rumlow’s watch, capiche?”

“Yes sir,” Rogers had replied, and after a second he added, “The toilet, sir? Isn’t that pushing it a little.”

“It damn well is not, Rogers,” Fury said quietly. “Your job is to protect the President’s son, do I make myself perfectly clear?”

“Yes sir.”

“And if that means protecting him from himself, then so be it!”

And that was how Steve found himself at Bethesda’s Walter Reed Army Medical Center that morning, flashing his ID to the two MPs guarding Bucky Barnes’ room. He knocked curtly and, after a slight pause, received the response to enter.

He was sitting on the edge of the bed, an excited golden Labrador at his feet. Bucky Barnes looked every inch the perfect, polished soldier, his boots gleaming, uniform freshly pressed and his hair neatly combed. The only thing that gave away the fact that all was not completely well was the red that rimmed his blue eyes as Bucky turned to him. His eyebrows raised in surprise.

“Well, you’re not my doctor,” he said dryly.

“No sir,” Steve answered quietly, standing at ease, hands clasped loosely behind his back. “I’m Agent Rogers, sir. I’ve been assigned as your protection.”

Bucky Barnes smiled, but it was cold. He scratched the Labrador behind the ears once and then stood, straightening his jacket.

“Excellent, I have another personal babysitter.”

Steve didn’t reply. Bucky was a few inches smaller than him, but the way he held himself, the way he moved, exuded confidence and danger. Even after everything the man had been through, those qualities radiated from him.

He stood still as Bucky walked towards him, dog at his heels with it’s tail wagging at supersonic speed and gazing adorably up at it’s human. Bucky stopped in front of Steve, deliberately invading the personal bubble as he reached up and straightened Steve’s dark tie. He grinned widely, and clapped him on the shoulder before sidling past, calling over his shoulder.

“Well, buckle up Rogers, because you’re in for a hell of a ride!”


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky hadn’t been in the Oval Office too many times - it always seemed a little too surreal. The last time he had ventured inside was the day the President pinned the Purple Heart to his pristine uniform, once his feet had healed and he was able to stand without crutches. It had made a pretty picture, President and War Hero, side by side. America had loved it.

The President was on the phone when he walked it, his new Secret Service goon tailing him and Boomer at his side. Nobody questioned the dog. President Barnes looked up from the desk, spotted him and smiled, holding up one finger while the conversation was finished. Bucky stood patiently at ease until the phone was slotted back into the cradle.

“Bucky!”

“Hi mom,” he smiled warmly stepping forward to embrace her. She held him tightly for a long minute before kissing his cheek and stepping back, holding him at arm’s length while surveying him.

“You look tired, honey.”

Bucky laughed and shrugged.

“Ah, I’m okay.”

“Are you sure?”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Mom, I’m twenty five, not five. I’m sure. I’m fine.”

The President nodded before letting go of Bucky’s arms and heading back to the other side of her desk.

“Okay,” she replied, gathering up some papers and handing them to her assistant, Natasha. Bucky raised his eyebrows in acknowledgement and Nat gave him a brief smile before the President spoke again. “I’ve asked them to get the house in the Hamptons ready for you. I thought you could stay there for a couple of weeks while you get back on your feet.”

“What?” Bucky replied in disbelief.

“I just don’t think it’s good for you to come right out of hospital and back into big city life when you’ve just recovered from a burn out,” President Barnes said quietly.

Bucky shook his head.

“Do I not even get a say in this?”

The President looked up and around the Oval Office. There were only a few staff inside, but the door was open.

“Can we have the room for the moment, please?” She asked. They all filed out, and Natasha closed the door behind her. His mother turned back. “Bucky, I can’t have you in DC right now. Not after the last time. You know that you can’t handle it right now. If you go to the house in the Hamptons then you can ease into it. Have a quiet drink with friends, walk Boomer on the beach…”

“Be boring?”

President Barnes fixed him with a stony glare.

“Boring is just what you need right now, Bucky.”

He stared at his feet and drew his top lip between his teeth, gnawing it anxiously. Beside him, Boomer whined and nosed his hand. Bucky drew a deep breath and drew himself up straight, looking his mother calmly in the eye.

“Alright.”

She smiled at him.

“Good. How is your new Secret Service guy?”

“Rogers? Stoic.”

“Natasha says he’s very good. She put his name forward – vouched for him.”

“Well, if Natasha says he’s decent…” Bucky muttered sarcastically.

“Be nice,” his mother warned. “You’re going to be stuck with him for a while.

~

Steve was already tired of this shit.

Bucky Barnes had walked out of the hospital at Bethesda to a horde of paparazzi and reporters. You could tell that he came from money and politics, the way he handled them with casual grace and charm, easily dodging questions that were too prying and reaffirming that he was fine, that he was back on form, fighting fit and ready for the world before sweeping away and climbing into the black Secret Service car that was waiting for him, Steve sliding into the driver’s seat.

“Fucking vultures,” Bucky said venomously as he buckled up and hunched down in the seat, pulling a pair of sunglasses from the breast pocket of his uniform jacket and sliding them onto his face effortlessly. Seconds later, the tie was loosened and the top shirt button undone, and an iPod was being pulled from nowhere and inserted into the jack by the radio. The Pretty Reckless blasted from the speakers as Steve pulled away from the army hospital and headed back into DC with the President’s son lighting up a cigarette and rolling the window down fully.

“Hey, do you mind if we stop for Starbucks?”

Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Sir?”

“Starbucks,” Bucky repeated in a tone more suited to a petulant teenager. “I’ve been stuck in a damn hospital for six weeks, away from anything good. I want a Frap, and then I want Krispy Kremes, and then we can go to the White House.”

Steve reluctantly agreed. Fury had told him not to deviate, to take James Buchanan Barnes directly to the White House, but he really couldn’t see the harm in taking the guy to get a coffee and a donut. That was until Steve pulled up to the drive-through.

Bucky unfastened his seat belt and kneeled on his seat, leaning right over Steve’s lap to see the girl at the window and rested his arms on the open window of the car. He gave the girl the most charming smile.

“Hey there, beautiful!”

“Good morning sir. Can I take your order?” The girl blushed slightly, smiling as she keyed into the cash register.

“Yeah, I’ll take the biggest Frap you guys do, caramel, extra shot, extra cream, extra everything and….Rogers, do you want anything?”

Bucky leaned back to look at Steve, shifting in his lap and pressing down with hips just where Steve really didn’t need the pressure. He shook his head quickly.

“No thank you, sir.”

Bucky shrugged and turned back to the Starbucks girl, mercifully shifting his weight back.

“Nothing for Rogers!”

“Anything else, sir?” she asked with a smile.

“Only your phone number.”

Bucky got the fucking phone number, written on the side of the enormous plastic Frappuccino cup. He did exactly the same thing at the Krispy Kreme, and when he’d finished both the frozen coffee and the two glazed donuts, deposited the trash and the trash and the phone numbers in the bin. Steve frowned.

“Why did you ask for their phone numbers if you’re just going to throw them away?”

Bucky shrugged and turned his head to look at Steve, licking the sugar of the donut from the tips of his fingers.

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he replied. Steve’s frown deepened.

“Do you not think they might be…I dunno…upset when you never call?”

James Barnes lowered his sunglasses and blinked slowly at him, his head tilted slightly to the side.

“Why do you care?”

Steve took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel tighter.

“I don’t, sir. Only voicing an opinion, that’s all.”

Bucky snorted softly and let his head fall back onto the head rest, replacing his sunglasses over his eyes and folding his arms over his chest.

“Next time, just keep it to yourself,” he had murmured.

And so when the President had ushered her staff out of the room for a moment alone with her son, Steve had turned immediately to her assistant, Natasha Romanoff and launched into the story of the morning. They had worked together for two years now, and she was very good at keeping secrets. Steve trusted her.

“Why is he such an ass?”

Natasha looked up from the papers she was leafing through and smiled wryly at him.

“He hasn’t always been,” she admitted. Nat had been with the President for three years, and was not only her assistant, but her bodyguard. Romanoff had been recruited by the CIA at the tender age of eighteen. She was incredibly smart and had fast-tracked through college with a Political Science major and spent a year working for the Agency in Russia before joining President Barnes’ election campaign. “But when you’re held and tortured by the Taliban for three months, things tend to change you a little. And then there was that thing with Rumlow…”

Steve’s eyebrows rose, curiously.

“What did happen with Rumlow?”

Natasha looked hard at him, and then lowered her green eyes to her papers again.

“Trust me, Rogers. You don’t really want to know.”

He sighed and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Was he that much different before Afghanistan?”

Natasha glanced up from her papers again and sighed, closing the file and joining Steve to lean against the wall.

“A little. He was sweet. Funny. His smile reached his eyes and whoever saw it wanted to smile too. Always confident, always cocky, but I guess he still is. I suppose he was just a little softer around the edges than he is now.”

“Oh,” Steve grinned at her. She had one of those looks on her face. “So you and Bucky….?”

Natasha shot him a hard look, but almost immediately it softened and she grinned at him.

“Yeah, well. It was campaign year, everything was a bit wild. It was only ever physical though. We broke it off when his mother was elected and he was shipped out to Afghanistan.”

The door opened behind them and they both sprang up from their reclining posts against the wall, switching to professional mode in a split second as the President and her son exited the Oval Office. Bucky Barnes looked like a scolded child. The man could pout.

“Natasha, my son is leaving for the airport now. Would you kindly call ahead and make sure Air Force One is ready for when he gets there?”

“Of course, Madam President.”

Steve and Natasha gave each other a nod of acknowledgement before parting, Nat walking back into the Oval Office and Steve hurrying to catch up with Bucky who was practically storming out of the White House.

~

It wasn’t that Bucky hated the Hamptons. He had grown up in New York, had spent weekends and holidays at the house in East Hampton and he had loved it. It just really felt as though he were being sent into exile. He’d just done six weeks in a military hospital recovering from a serious burn out, not being allowed to leave the premises, military escorts to the bathroom. His life had been dictated and regimented worse than when he had been deployed. Bucky finally had freedom to go out, breathe the fresh air and instead he was being carted off to the Hamptons with a new Secret Serviceperson that he knew nothing about.

Not that he missed Rumlow. That guy could rot in hell for all Bucky cared, but he knew that Rogers had been employed because he was decent, dependable, and honest. It was written all over his face. He was going to watch Bucky like a hawk and make sure that he didn’t slip back into self destruct mode.

He got it. He really did. He was the only thing his mother had left after Bucky’s dad had been killed in the Gulf War in 1990. Bucky didn’t even remember his dad.

And it wasn’t even that Bucky didn’t want to live, because he did. Three months of torture and never knowing if his next breath was going to be his last had only made him more determined to make the most of his life when he got it back. His only problem was that he had tried too hard at it.

Bucky knew that his mother was trying to let him back into the real world gently. He just wished he’d been allowed more of a discussion about it. But here he was, sitting on the Presidential plane with an Agent who already looked like he hated Bucky’s guts and heading to JFK.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” Bucky said, leaning forward over the small table to look at Rogers who was sitting opposite, leafing through a paper file. He looked up and blinked slowly. Bucky could tell that he was searching for the answer least likely to offend and he grinned wryly. “It’s okay, I don’t mind. You don’t have to like me to be able to do your job.”

Bucky sat back and turned to look out the window, and Rogers slowly closed the file and placed it on the table in front of him.

“You don’t remember me at all, do you, sir?”

Bucky raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“Should I?”

Rogers cleared his throat.

“Two years ago, sir. Helmand Province, 107th Infantry. We overlapped command for three days – you rotated in just as I was going out. We went on one patrol together when we were ambushed. You pushed me out of the line of fire and behind cover. We took out…”

“…six insurgents.” Bucky finished. He remembered it very well, the blinding sunshine, the heat, the dust that kicked up in the spray of bullets and the kicking of combat boots as they scrambled for cover. And he remembered the man that had slipped on the loose ground and fallen, who he had grabbed by the straps of his back and hauled behind a rock. “You’re Captain Steve Rogers. I remember you.”

~

His entire face changed. Bucky went from being bored and sullen one second to sitting up straight in his chair, eyes bright with recognition as he reached over the table and grasped Steve’s hand firmly, his smile genuine and warm. Steve suddenly knew what Natasha had been talking about earlier.

“You know what? I am so sorry. You must have thought I was a total asshole.” Bucky said.

“Well…” Steve trailed off, unsure of what to say. He had thought Bucky to be a total asshole, but he really didn’t want to say so. In the army they had both been Captains, been of equal rank, but here, Steve was in Bucky’s service. He didn’t have the right to speak to him like an equal.

“No, seriously,” Bucky grinned, finally letting go of Steve’s hand and relaxing into his seat again. “I was an asshole. I apologise. I didn’t realise that you were military too.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck absently, still taken aback at the warmth radiating from this man, how sudden and unexpected it had been. He honestly hadn’t believed that Bucky would remember that day in Helmand. They had literally met the night Barnes had arrived, had a drink in the mess, gone out on patrol the next day, and then Steve had rotated back to the States the day after, leaving Bucky Barnes in charge of his old unit. Steve had then applied for White House security and been discharged from the army, and spent the next two years shadowing members of the cabinet.

Bucky sighed and smiled.

“I’m afraid I’m a little distrustful of the Secret Service right now - after the last guy. It all went to hell, and I was really nervous about having another shadow, but now I know who you are and that you’re one of my own…I trust you. I know I can trust you.”

Steve felt himself smile at that and he nodded.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Bucky repeated. “107th, huh?”

“107th,” Steve chuckled.

“Well, fuck me. Small world.” Bucky drew a deep breath and then slapped the table with the palm of his hand and stood. “This calls for a drink.”

“Sir? It’s barely mid-day.”

Bucky grinned wickedly.

“Even better.”


	3. Chapter 3

The Hamptons were nice. Steve had grown up in Brooklyn but had never been to this side of New York before, the part mostly owned by the rich and the famous, with large mansions and expensive clubs. Nobody bat an eyelid at the line of shiny black Secret Service cars making their way through East Hampton to the Barnes Mansion.

On the subject of Barnes, Steve was pleasantly surprised to find that, after their exchange on the plane, he was starting to see Bucky in a whole new light. First impressions were important, but not always accurate, he realised. From the moment they alighted at JFK, Bucky seemed determined to treat Steve more like a friend than a guardian.

The house was large and full of windows – a horrible security hazard as far as the Secret Service was concerned. The amount of times Fury had tried to convince the President to make it less open and transparent, and less of a death trap, had been innumerable. But the President refused to yield, and so the glass was so heavily reinforced that he doubted that a nuclear blast could displace it.

Bucky settled in fast. Steve was put up in the room next to his and the other servicemen who had made the trip with them had settled down in the guest house. The President’s son got almost as much security as the President herself.

He was roped into eating a superb taglietelle that Bucky made himself and then tried hard not to fall asleep during a Friends marathon that his charge put on the TV that evening. He was just glad that Bucky hadn’t wanted to go out that night.

His bed was comfortable, a lot bigger than what he was used to, and he slept the whole of the first night very well until he was woken up by Bucky hammering on his door.

“STEVIE!” he yelled. “I need to take Boomer for a walk. Are you coming, or should I ask one of the Blues Brothers?”

“Uh…” Steve started, reaching for his gun before he realised that there was no need, and reached for his watch instead. It wasn’t much past 7am. “No. I mean, yeah. Give me five minutes.”

He heard Bucky chuckling to himself and then talking enthusiastically to the dog as he walked away. Steve ran a hand through his hair and then got out of bed and searched through his bag for something appropriate to wear.

By the time he got downstairs, Bucky and Boomer were already waiting for him by the door. Steve slotted his gun into the holster and then covered it with his hoodie before following them out.

It was a brisk February morning and the wind coming in off the Atlantic was freezing. They jogged along the stretch and back in half an hour before hurrying back inside for showers. Afterwards, Bucky wanted to run some errands.

“You know,” said Steve, laughing. “You can’t just use the secret service cars for Starbucks runs whenever you want.”

“Of course I can,” Bucky replied, grinning at him. “For one, how am I supposed to get a decent Frap if I can’t drive to get one, and second…you have to do what I say, I’m your boss.”

“Oh, so that’s the way it is, huh?”

“That’s the way it is,” Bucky grinned. “Now get your ass in the car and drive me to Starbucks!”

Steve was quite happy to do it this time, as Bucky was much less obnoxious. Boomer spent the whole trip with his head out of the window in typical dog fashion. Steve even got himself a latte and they drove to the beach front to drink their beverages and let Boomer have another run around.

“Do you just like Starbucks because of the name, or does the coffee factor in somewhere?” Steve asked as they sat on the hood of the car watching the excited Labrador chase seagulls. Bucky laughed at him.

“I guess the name had something to do with it,” he smiled.

“And the extra shot caramel Frappucinos?”

“And those!” Bucky took a loud slurp of frozen beverage as punctuation before turning to look at Steve. “So…what’s your story, Steve Rogers? I seem to have done most of the talking so far, so now it’s your turn.”

Steve took a small sip of his latte and shrugged.

“Not much to tell, really,” he said. “I grew up in Brooklyn with my mom. Dad was in the army – he died. I sort of joined to follow in his footsteps.”

“Why did you leave?”

Steve thought about it for a second.

“I guess,” he said slowly, “that I went over there thinking I could make a difference, that I was going to protecting people, but the longer I was over there the more I felt like being over there just made everything worse for all parties involved. It got to the end of my two years and when they offered me another two, I realised I just couldn’t do it anymore.”

Steve turned his head to look at Bucky who was staring at him with the most serious look Steve had seen on him yet.

“I know exactly what you mean,” he replied. “And I guess we’re both out now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. The army won’t put me back on active service because I’m not physically fit. They offered me an intelligence position at the Pentagon but that’s not really where I want to spend the rest of my days. So I’m getting out.”

Steve gave him a small smile.

“What do you think you’ll do instead?”

Bucky grinned widely.

“Maybe I’ll work in Starbucks!”

~

One of the best things about the house in the Hamptons was the indoor pool. It was small – only 10 meters, but it was heated and he could pump music into the room that echoed amazingly off the cool tiles, and you could dim the lights or get them to cycle through colours, and best of all, the floor-to-ceiling window faced the sea. He really enjoyed just floating in there, his arms resting on the side and his feet kicking lazily out behind him as he watched the waves break and crash against the shore. It was soothing, peaceful.

It had taken Bucky a long time to get comfortable around water again. When the SEAL squad had finally blew up the bunker and rescued him and his fellow prisoners, it had taken them three days to get Bucky anywhere near a shower, and even then it had been under sedation with three medics to assist. After his brain had realised that he was in no danger from water anymore, the showers got easier and more enjoyable. Deeper water took a little more time to get used to, but he had spent the last month utilising the pool at the military hospital under instructions from his doctors and now he was pretty much back to normal. Besides, if he put his feet down in this pool, the water barely covered his hips.

Steve Rogers was hanging around just outside the room and Bucky shook his head with a smile. He had definitely developed a liking for the man, despite his distrust at first. That hadn’t so much been Rogers’ fault as it had Bucky’s past experience. He had been more than thrilled to discover that Steve had been in his old unit – the soldiers in the 107th were the most solid that Bucky had ever experienced, and from the second he had known, he had made the decision to trust Steve Rogers with his life. The man was a legend – they had called him Captain America over in Afghanistan and he had been essential in taking down a lot of insurgent bases. Bucky Barnes had had big boots to fill, but he had managed to do alright. Until his patrol team, nicknamed the Howling Commandos, had been ambushed and taken captive. Thankfully, none of his boys had suffered anywhere near the same extent of interrogation as Bucky had. None of them had been the son of the President of the United States of America.

Pushing his wet hair back from his face, Bucky pushed off from the side and floated into the middle of the pool, searching for the figure of his Secret Serviceman.

“STEVE?”

Rogers was through the doorway immediately.

“Sir?”

Bucky grinned at him.

“Well, first of all, you have GOT to stop calling me ‘sir’. It feels very weird and honestly, you’re not a subordinate, so stop. Secondly, I have an enormous hankering to play water polo. Get in the pool.”

Steve raised his eyebrows and looked down at his suit.

“Get in the pool? Are you serious?”

“Please,” Bucky added as an afterthought, flashing a very toothy smile. Steve laughed and shook his head.

“I’m supposed to be your security, you know. How am I supposed to do my job when I’m practically naked and playing water polo?”

“Oh my god, Rogers! Who the hell do you think is going to try and kill me in a tiny pool surrounded by reinforced walls and six inches of missile-proof glass?” Steve shrugged and looked around helplessly. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“I don’t have any trunks…”

Bucky laughed and leaned back in the pool, treading water for a second. Then he reached beneath the surface, shed his own trunks and threw them to the side of the pool, the fabric landing with a wet slap against the ridged floor.

“Neither do I,” he replied triumphantly. “Now are you going to get in, or do I have to come and get you?”

Steve Rogers laughed at him and threw up his hands in defeat before beginning to strip out of his suit. Bucky grinned and swam to the side to find the water polo net and strung it across as Steve laid aside his clothes, his earpiece and his service pistol before slipping into the pool with him.

Bucky tossed the white ball over the net and the game began. It was fun – they laughed, they called each other out on illegal moves, they threw good-natured insults. Bucky was thoroughly enjoying himself for the first time in months when his foot slipped on the smooth tiled bottom of the pool and he went backwards under the water.

He panicked.

The sensation of his head being completely enclosed in water was too familiar, too chillingly terrifying and his body remembered what usually came next. Bucky thrashed pathetically, unable to regain a foothold and it made him panic further. His blood was pounding in his ears, his heart beating so heard the thought it would split his ribcage and his lungs were about to burst with the desire for oxygen.

And then suddenly he felt a strong arm around his chest and he was hauled upright, clear of the water. Bucky gasped in his much needed breath and clung tight to his saviour, fingers digging into shoulder muscles as he finally managed to get both feet flat on the floor and looked up into the very concerned face of Steve Rogers. Their faces were so close that Bucky could almost count the pale freckles that covered his nose.

“Are you alright?”

Rogers was still holding Bucky firmly and close enough that Bucky could feel his heart hammering too. A smile flittered across his face to disappear as soon as it had appeared.

“Yeah…” Bucky tried very hard to breathe and bring his heart rate down. He forced himself to laugh. “That was a close call.”

Steve raised his eyebrows and then slowly they disentangled from each other.

“You really scared me for a second there,” he said.

“I really scared myself!” Bucky admitted, taking a few steps back. “I should probably take that as my cue to get out of the pool.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Rogers’ brow was still furrowed in deep concern. Bucky gave his easiest smile.

“Yeah. I mean…yeah, it’s all good. Just lost my footing. Thank you for setting me right.” He turned and swiftly and hauled himself out of the pool, dripping water as he made his way to the door, taking one of the fluffy white bath towels that hung waiting and wrapping it around his waist. “I’ll be in the shower,” he called over his shoulder.

Five minutes later, Bucky found himself huddled on the floor of the shower in his en suite, knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them like a child. He drew in deep, shuddering breaths as the water ran down over his scalp and face and tried to calm himself.

Just like the nightmares, it was obviously going to take him a long time to feel okay with going under.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just laying down a little more plot before fleshing out their relationship, so I'm afraid its not a remarkably exciting chapter.

“Steve, I can’t believe you got in the pool!” Maria Hill, Fury’s second in command had groaned down the phone at him. “You are not his friend, you are his security. You need to maintain some boundaries.”

Steve had sighed and rubbed his hand over the short strands of hair, still wet from the pool. He had decided to call in an update whilst Bucky was in the shower. Maria was not happy with him, even though he had tried explaining that Bucky would possibly have drowned if Steve hadn’t been in the pool at the time. She wasn’t satisfied with it.

“I know he can be very charming,” Maria had told him with a sigh. “But you have to keep your distance in order to do your job properly. Nothing wrong with being friendly, but no more of this, okay? Fury was going to put Coulson on him, but Romanoff assured him that you were the right guy for the job. Don’t make her regret it.”

Steve had reluctantly agreed, but he wasn’t sure if he was doing the right thing. Something wasn’t quite right about Bucky Barnes and Steve wasn’t sure if distance was really what he needed right now.

Bucky put on the front that he was fine, but after what happened in the pool, Steve knew it wasn’t the case. The details of his interrogation at the hands of the Taliban had been restricted. He obviously came back on crutches and the White House had released a press statement saying that Bucky had received daily beatings but had said nothing else, except that James Barnes was making a steady recovery. Steve knew there was more, but even though he had been tasked with Bucky’s security, they didn’t see fit to give him that information.

Whatever he had experienced, Bucky seemed to be alright again after his shower and they had passed the rest of the day in the house, playing table tennis and watching more Friends episodes and playing with Boomer. All the same, something was off. Bucky was quieter, a little more reserved than he had been for the previous 24 hours and Steve knew right then that he would be bending the rules again before their time was up.

~

Bucky thought he would sleep badly, but woke up refreshed having spent the night dreaming of driving a motorbike on Route 66 searching for watermelon. Boomer was lying next to him on the bed, head on his paws and tail wagging enthusiastically. Bucky grinned and got up, dressing quickly and heading down the stairs to feed his dog and himself. Rogers was already up and eating cereal at the kitchen counter and watching the news. Bucky gave him a hearty clap on the back.

“Hey pal,” he said cheerfully.

“Morning,” Steve replied neutrally.

Bucky had done his best to whitewash over his panic attack the previous day, but he knew he had been more withdrawn than he would have liked.

He found a clean bowl in the cupboard and poured out a healthy dose of cereal, skipping the milk and opting for eating it dry, just like he had as a kid. Boomer attacked the kibble in his dish.

He wasn’t really paying any attention to the news until Steve motioned to the TV with his spoon.

“Can you believe that? My buddy Sam works at the VA in the City. It’s a travesty.”

Bucky looked up and tuned in.

_“…Governor of New York, Alexander Pierce says that public funding will be cut for a lot of non-essential services in New York City. Amongst those places earmarked for closure is the Veteran’s Association Counselling Center, as Governor Pierce believes that Veterans may be better suited to private or hospital-run counselling rather than draining public money for their own service…”_

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Bucky yelled, almost throwing his cereal bowl into the sink. “That son of a fucking bitch! This is bullshit!”

“Hey, calm down!” Steve said, half standing as though to step in.

“No, I can’t. That guy is an ass! He’s doing this on purpose.”

Bucky tugged at his hair and paced the floor, very agitated. Alexander Pierce had done his best over time to bring down President Barnes, all through her time as Governor of New York and continued to hound her in Office. Messing with the public funding for the VA’s counselling sessions was just another way to hit her where it hurt. And Bucky wasn’t going to stand for it. He fished his phone from his pocket, dialling his mother’s direct number. She answered on the second ring and he immediately launched into a tirade against Pierce. President Barnes was indeed annoyed.

“Go,” she said to him. “You put on your uniform, pin all of your medals on your chest and you march down to that VA and you speak against him, do you hear me?”

“Yeah?” Bucky said, brightening. “You trust me to do that?”

“Absolutely. He is not going to close that place down. We will fund it from our own pockets if we have to but he is not doing that to our veterans. And you are the perfect person to do it.”

He felt good when he hung up. A strange good, like he had back in Afghanistan in the instant before a fire fight started. It wasn’t happy, and it wasn’t really excitement. It was like a heightened state of calm and acute focus, where everything was clear. He turned to a very confused-looking Steve and took a deep breath.

“Put on your best suit, Stevie. We’re going to war with Alexander Pierce.”

Bucky did just as the President had instructed. He put on his pristine dress uniform and pinned on the medals that mattered. Then he put on his shining boots, combed his hair straight and placed his peaked hat on his head. He looked every inch the perfect soldier, the war hero. He looked ready for a fight.

~

“Alexander Pierce has had it out for my mother since day one,” Bucky explained in the car as Steve drove him from Long Island to Manhattan, the other two servicemen from the house in the car behind. “He’s determined to do anything to harm her, including hitting things that are close to her personally. Closing the counselling center is his way of taking a dig at me and he doesn’t care how many innocent people get destroyed in that process.”

“That’s a bit extreme,” Steve mused. He hadn’t stopped frowning since Bucky’s outburst in the kitchen earlier. Bucky had looked so angry, so genuinely upset at what he saw on the news. He’d had one short conversation with the President and in no time at all, Steve had found himself driving the First Son to the New York City VA where veterans and their families were protesting at the proposed funding cuts. Frantic phone calls had been made to the NYPD to provide extra security for this impromptu visit, and Steve was already getting a stress headache. He glanced over to the man in the passenger seat who was smoking a cigarette. Steve realised that Bucky only smoked when he felt under pressure.

“Pierce believes in a different kind of world to us. We believe that peace is attainable but you have to fight for it, you have to negotiate. The world isn’t perfect and people aren’t perfect and the only thing you can do is make the best of what you have to work with. Pierce on the other hand would happily kill every single person on this planet that opposed his views and attain peace that way. He doesn’t agree with the way my mother runs this country and he would do anything to see her good name smeared in dirt. He’s tried before. He was unsuccessful. But God help us all if that man ever runs for President.”

“Why would anyone vote for him if that’s what he’s like?” Steve asked. Bucky looked at him and raised his eyebrows.

“Well they elected him Governor of New York, so why not?”

Steve’s frown deepened and they drove the rest of the way in relative silence.

At the VA however, Bucky was a dream.

The second he stepped out of the car, people recognised him and cheered. Bucky smiled and waved, he shook hands with veterans, he gave hugs, he sat and listened to them and was genuinely interested in their experiences and views on Pierce’s announcement.

Steve was amazed at how he could have been so wrong about another person. Bucky had transformed in no time at all from a sullen and bratty twenty five year old to a genuine and passionate human being, radiating warmth and charisma and openness. The cameras all loved him, light bulbs flashing as reporters crowded outside of the rooms he went in and out of, cameras rolled and zoomed in on his face as he talked with veterans. Steve understood why this was so important to Bucky. Just like he had latched on to Steve the minute he had discovered they had served in the same unit, he felt like these soldiers were his brothers and sisters, that they all had shared experiences that were worth hearing, worth helping.

“That kid is unbelievable,” a familiar voice said in Steve’s ear and he turned around to see Sam Wilson grinning at him. He turned and grinned back.

“He is something else,” he admitted. The cameras started flashing again as Bucky stood up and moved to the front of the room to stand at the podium. A hush fell over everybody present, the only noise being the cameras clicking.

“Well,” Bucky said with a small smile. “When I turned on the news this morning, I never expected to hear that the Governor of this fine city wanted to cut funding for your counselling. I was mad, I admit. And then I realised that he just doesn’t understand, and I guess that isn’t his fault, because nobody understands. Nobody except us. We’re the only ones who understand what it’s like to be a soldier, what it’s like to go over and fight in another country for people who don’t have the means to defend themselves from tyranny. We understand each other, we know the burden that each of us carry home with us and carry with us every day. He’s just like our families, like the guy at the store, our waiters, our doctors. They know, but they don’t get it.

But your counsellors, the guys who work here, they are just like us. They have been through the same things we’ve been through and that makes them more qualified to help us through it than private institutions. Because when you’re out there, you trust that the soldier beside you has your back and you have theirs. That feeling doesn’t go away once you’re home. If anything, you’re more in need of trusting somebody to have your back.

This is why this place is so important. And it’s why I will assure you that this place will not close. You have given a lot in service to your country and it is your country’s duty to take care of you. So we will.”

The place erupted as Bucky finished his speech. Everybody leapt to their feet, cheering and applauding, light bulbs blinded Steve as every camera in the place went off.

“I think he just single-handedly saved this place,” Sam murmured to him. Steve thought he might be right.

~

Bucky’s heart was hammering. He hadn’t intended to make a speech – it had just sort of happened. He wasn’t even entirely sure what he’d said, but it much have been good enough to warrant such an amazing reaction from the veterans. Bucky smiled and nodded and moved away from the podium, heading towards Steve, who was standing grinning at him at the side.

“Christ, I haven’t done anything like that in a while!”

Steve chuckled.

“Alexander Pierce is shaking in his shoes,” he replied and Bucky laughed before turning his attention to the man standing slightly behind and to the left of Steve.

“I take it you’re Sam?”

The man beamed at him and held out his hand in greeting.

“I am! And you sir, need no introduction at all. That was some speech!”

Bucky rubbed the back of his neck absently.

“Yeah? I just really said what was in my head.”

“Nah, that one came from the heart,” Steve replied. He was grinning widely and Bucky felt himself glow with the validation. He rubbed the back of his neck again.

“Er…okay…anyway, we should probably get going.”

Steve nodded and turned to say goodbye to Sam. Bucky even invited Steve’s friend over to the house in the Hamptons at the weekend for a boy’s night complete with beer and burgers and probably some poker, which Wilson happily accepted.

In the car, Bucky kept glancing at Steve, only to find his Secret Serviceman grinning idiotically.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Steve replied, his grin not faltering. “I just don’t know how you did it. You walked in there and changed everything. All those people turned up today to protest against something that was almost a certainty, and they you show up and make one speech and suddenly everything has changed. Your appearance had made sure that Pierce can never shut the place down because it’s all over the news, all over the country. There would be a nationwide uproar if he were to try now. And that’s all because of you.”

Bucky laughed shortly and ran his hand through his hair, his cap having long since been relegated to the back seat.

“No it’s not. It’s because of who I am. It’s always because of who I am. Nobody would have paid a blind bit of notice otherwise.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Steve chided. “Yes, okay, so you’re Bucky Barnes and you’re President Barnes’ son and that holds a lot of weight. But you could have chosen not to go. You could have said that it wasn’t your problem and just stayed home. But you went, and you talked to those people and you inspired them and you showed them solidarity. That was all you, and that counts. No matter what you think, that counts.”

Steve looked over at him and smiled warmly, and Bucky couldn’t help but grin back.

“Careful, Rogers. You’ll inflate my ego.”

“Maybe it needs a little inflating,” Steve replied teasingly.

Bucky started to laugh and shook his head. He didn’t know why it was so important to hear Steve say something like this to him, why this meant so much to him.

“You’re such a punk,” he said fondly.

“Jerk,” Rogers grinned. “Are we stopping for Starbucks on the way home or what?”

“Hell yeah!” Bucky replied with a laugh. “What day would be complete without it?”


	5. Chapter 5

It rained heavily for the whole of Saturday. Steve and Bucky attempted to go for a run along the beach with Boomer, but the rain pierced their clothing like thousands of needles and had them shivering and sore and honestly quite miserable. It took a couple of cups of coffee before the numbness of the February weather left them.

Sam came over that evening and the three of them ordered Chinese food and drank beer from the bottle and swapped stories about Afghanistan. Sam had served with Steve but had rotated out three months before Bucky rotated in. The two had never crossed paths but Steve was thrilled that they were already getting on like a house on fire.

“…and Captain America here, well he busts down this door and he runs into this burning building and everybody thinks he’s dead because he’s in there forever and these flames are getting higher and the roof is coming down, and then suddenly he jumps out of the second floor window with three Afghan schoolgirls in his arms, lands on his god damned feet and just casually walks back towards us like its nothing and deposits the little girls with their teacher. And then he dusts himself off and is all ‘so, are we going then?’”

“You’re kidding me?” Bucky laughed, his blue eyes wide.

“Not at all,” Sam enthused. “You couldn’t make this shit up!”

“I’m sure it didn’t quite go down like that,” Steve protested, slightly embarrassed at the portrait Sam was portraying of him, and flustered by the mixed look of amusement and awe that Bucky was giving him.

“Oh no, it absolutely went down like that.”

“Wow,” Bucky grinned, taking a sip of beer. “I mean, I had heard that I had big boots to fill but I had no idea. I feel like a pretty inadequate commander next to you.”

Steve gave a short laugh and shook his head.

“Seriously, Sam’s exaggerating!”

“I’m not,” Sam said seriously, “But you did great Barnes. I know a few from the 107th who sing your praises from the rooftops.”

Bucky shrugged.

“Well, I couldn’t have been that good if I managed to get my whole squad captured by the Taliban and detained for three months.”

Sam and Steve exchanged looks as Bucky took another sip of beer. Bucky felt guilty, Steve realised, felt like it had been his responsibility to protect his soldiers and he had somehow failed them. He shook his head.

“That wasn’t your fault…”

“I know,” Bucky said, giving them both a blindingly beautiful smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “The air support just didn’t reach us in time.”

Steve put down his chopsticks and frantically searched for a subject change, which thankfully Sam found.

“So are you thinking of going into politics like your mom?”

Bucky shrugged.

“Ah, I don’t know. I don’t think I’m cut out for it.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sam argued with a grin. “From what I heard at the VA the other day, you’d be perfect at it.”

“I don’t think I could handle the stress,” Bucky laughed.

“Didn’t you do politics at college?” Steve asked, picking his chopsticks back up and digging into his dinner.

“Kind of. I did modern languages with political science.”

“I thought all you moneyed people did law?” Sam replied, standing up and crossing the kitchen to get another beer. Bucky laughed even louder.

“Fuck no! Boring as hell. I could never do law.”

“So what languages do you know?” Steve asked, genuinely interested. This was really the first truly personal information that Bucky Barnes had divulged to him.

“Uh…French, German, Russian….a little Arabic…”

“All those lamguages must have made you quite an asset to the army,” Sam replied as he sat back down, three fresh beers in his hands.

“Somewhat,” Bucky said with a shrug.

Steve didn’t want the conversation to gravitate towards Afghanistan again, so he interrupted politely.

“Maybe President Barnes will put you on her staff. I reckon you’d be really valuable with those qualifications.”

Bucky grinned at him, a genuine, warm smile.

“Maybe. We’ll see.”

~

_The air was still as they came to a halt, almost all at once. It was too still, too quiet. The sun was high in the clear sky above and it seemed to reflect harshly off the yellow sand and white rocks into their eyes. Sweat poured out of him and pooled in his hair, trapped by the helmet that fit snugly. The Kevlar vest was heavy and made his shoulders ache. His body was saturated under the layers he was wearing in the Afghan heat._

_And in that second he knew. He knew they had walked into an ambush._

_He tried to give the signal to retreat but they were fired upon in that same instance. The whole unit tried to find cover but there was none. They were open, exposed – lambs to the slaughter. Except none of the shots were meant to kill. The insurgents meant to keep them pinned down, meant for them to waste their ammunition trying to fire back. He gave the order to call in air support._

_It was deafeningly loud, shots ringing in his ears. And then there was an explosion, and he was knocked back onto the ground, ears ringing and vision blurred, striking his head on a rock. When he came-to he was blindfolded, hands tied behind his back and feet bound. He wasn’t alone – this squad were here with him, obviously in the same situation. His armour had been taken away and he had been stripped of his weapons, all except the Glock 19 strapped to his leg, just above his boot, under his khakis. He was in a truck – he knew because he was on the floor and not a seat, and his body swayed as the wheels bounced over stones and rocks._

_He lost track of time as he tried to ease the bottom of his pants out of his boot, which was difficult because of the rope binding his feet together but he eventually managed it, just before the truck ground to a halt._

_There was shouting and they were bodily dragged from the truck and into a building by many pairs of hands. He was separated from the others, his feet unbound as he was hauled upright. They were numb and painful to stand on._

_“Who are you?” Someone yelled at him in a vaguely familiar language_

_He answered in kind, his own response slightly broken: name, rank, serial number. That’s all he was allowed to say. That’s all he would ever say._

_They kicked at the back of his legs and he dropped to his knees. And then they made the fatal error of cutting the bonds at his wrists. He was still blindfolded, but the second he felt the pressure ease on his skin, he went into action._

_One elbow jabbed out and made contact with a stomach. At the same time his other hand pushed the scrap of cloth upwards just enough so that he could see. The sudden light blinded him but he blinked and lashed out, making contact again before reaching into his boot and pulling out the hidden Glock, sliding off the safety in a fluid, easy motion. His arm swung up but he was still too blind to aim properly. He squeezed the trigger anyway._

The shot that rang out was real - too real to be in this nightmare and Bucky’s eyes snapped open as he was suddenly roused. He was kneeling on the bed and his arms were outstretched, his finger on the trigger of a Glock 19. There was a body on the floor.

~

Steve was woken by a shout and the sound of something ceramic falling to the ground and smashing. He was up immediately, throwing the covers back and grabbing the gun that he kept ready on the nightstand. Steve opened the door and swung his arm up ready to meet an adversary, but it was only Boomer, whining piteously at Bucky’s closed bedroom door. The dog looked frantic and her pawed at the wood, trying to get it open with no success. He held his pistol steady with his right hand and used his left to turn the door handle. The door swung inwards and Steve was met with the sight of Bucky, kneeling on the bed and holding a gun that was aimed right at him. His eyes were glazed and Steve knew instantly that Bucky was still asleep. He threw himself to the ground a second before the gun went off.

The shot must have stirred Bucky from his semi-sleeping state, as a few seconds later Steve heard him cry out in horror, followed by the sound of the gun hitting the floor. It was a miracle it didn’t go off again.

“Oh my God, Steve!” Bucky shouted as he stumbled to get off the bed, his legs getting caught in the sheets and tripping him up as he rushed to Steve’s side. “STEVE?”

“It’s okay,” Steve replied quietly as he eased himself up from the ground. “I’m okay.”

He wasn’t prepared for Bucky to practically fall onto the floor beside him and immediately wrap his arms around Steve’s neck and shoulders, holding him so tight that Steve had difficulty breathing for a few seconds.

“I thought I’d killed you,” Bucky whispered into the soft gray fabric of Steve’s t-shirt.

Bucky was trembling all over, his breathing ragged and Steve wrapped both of his arms around Bucky and held him close.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky said brokenly. “Boomer…”

“He was shut out and trying to get in. He knew something was wrong.”

“He usually wakes me up…”

The dog whined again just as the other two secret service agents made it into the house and yelled up the stairs.

“Stand down!” Steve yelled, disentangling himself from Bucky and passing him over to the dog who was trying to offer comfort only to find another human in his way. Steve scrambled to his feet and ran out of the room, leaning over the banister and looking into the set-jawed faces of his colleagues. “Stand down,” he repeated. “It was just an accident, everything is fine.”

“What happened?”

“It was just an accident,” Steve repeated firmly. “Captain Barnes’ gun fell on the floor. The safety was off, that’s all.”

Slowly, the agents accepted the explanation and turned, heading down the stairs again and out, calling in the status report.

“Winter Soldier secure. False alarm.”

Steve sighed and returned to Bucky’s bedroom to find him still on the floor, his face still buried into the fuzzy neck of the Labrador, breathing a little more stable. He crouched down and touched him gently on the shoulder. Bucky flinched a little.

“Hey,” Steve murmured. “Are you okay?”

Bucky raised his head and looked at Steve, face pale and eyes still wide with shock.

“I don’t know what happened,” he rasped. “I don’t know how Boomer got locked out. He’s supposed to wake me up when I have nightmares. This has never happened to me before…”

“It’s alright,” Steve said softly, reaching out to gently pull Bucky to his feet.

“I almost killed you…”

“But you didn’t,” Steve reassured him.

“I could have…”

“You didn’t.”

Steve sat Bucky on the bed and kneeled on the floor in front of him, hands gripping his shoulders gently. Bucky took a few deep breaths and gave him a shaky smile.

“They didn’t tell you about the nightmares, did they?” he asked.

“No,” Steve admitted and Bucky shook his head a little with disbelief. “How long have you had them?”

“Ever since I got back. They used to be every night, but gradually they got down to maybe once a week. I guess talking to you and Sam tonight triggered this one. It’s not the usual one I have…”

“I’m sorry,” Steve said guiltily.

“It’s not your fault,” Bucky smiled weakly and pushed his hair back from his face. Boomer lay down beside Steve at Bucky’s feet and looked up at him with adoring brown eyes. “I guess they didn’t give you the particulars of what happened to me over there either?”

Steve shook his head and Bucky began to recount his experience. Steve listened in horror as Bucky told him of the beating, about how they whipped his feet with broom handles and broke the bones in his feet several times. He told Steve about the whippings, the water boarding, the drownings, and the electrocution. About being left naked and shivering and bleeding on the ground every night only to have it all done the next day. About how they taped it and mailed it to his mother in an attempt to coerce her into pulling all troops, handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban and to free all the Taliban prisoners that the USA had taken. Bucky had known that no matter how much they made him suffer, they were demands that the President of the United States could never meet, but a small part of him hated that she didn’t give in to save him.

Bucky’s voice had remained calm and soft throughout the whole tale, but it had caused him to shake again. Steve squeezed the tops of his arms gently.

“Do you think you’ll be able to get back to sleep?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Bucky admitted quietly.

“Do you want me to stay?”

Bucky looked up at him sharply, the sadness slipping away for a second.

“You’d do that?”

“Of course I would,” Steve replied, giving him a reassuring smile. Bucky smiled back.

“Okay.”

Bucky slid backwards on the mattress to make a space for Steve who climbed into the bed and straightened out the covers, pulling them up to waist-level before lying back against the pillows. He didn’t even blink when Bucky curled up against him and placed his head in the space between Steve’s shoulder and chest, his arm lying lightly across Steve’s stomach. He allowed himself a smile, glad that Bucky was so comfortable around him. His smiled widened when Boomer jumped on the bed too and lay on Steve’s other side, penning him in. He scratched the Labrador behind the ears with one hand and began to gently card the fingers of his other hand through Bucky’s mussed up hair, nails softly scratching at his scalp. Bucky’s eyes closed and he sighed contentedly.

“Mmm…s’good…” he mumbled.

“Yeah?” Steve murmured, tilting his head down slightly to look at him.

“Don’stop…”

Steve grinned and continued. A few minutes later, Bucky’s breathing levelled out and Steve knew he was asleep. He didn’t stop stroking his hair.

He was annoyed with Nick Fury about not informing him about Bucky’s nightmares or the details of his interrogation. Steve would never have let Sam go on about their patrols in Afghanistan if he had known exactly what Bucky had gone though.

Steve liked Bucky enormously, more than that, he admired him, respected him. It had only been a week but they had already become comfortable with each other, the way they spoke, the way they joked, the way they moved around the house. It was Steve’s job to protect him, but now Steve WANTED to protect him, regardless of his duty.

He sighed and pulled Bucky a little closer before closing his eyes and drifting off to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

The shrill ringing of a phone cut through the blackness of sleep and Bucky’s eyes fluttered open slowly. He was aware of a warm body lying pressed up next to him that definitely did not belong to a dog and he smiled to himself. The phone rang again and his smile disappeared, suddenly remembering why he’d woken in the first place. Steve stirred next to him as Bucky threw back the covers and swung his feet to the floor, standing and half-running out into the hallway to snatch the ringing phone from the cradle on the dresser in the hallway before the caller hung up.

“Hello?” he answered hoarsely.

“Bucky?” a woman replied. “Is that you?”

“Victoria!” Bucky smiled and then cleared his throat. “To what do I owe this pleasure so early in the morning?”

“Early? Did you just get out of bed? It’s almost lunchtime!”

“Seriously?” Bucky looked out of the window and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Yeah. Anyway, It’s Winter Picnic day and we’re all getting together on the beach in an hour or so. Somebody mentioned that you were back, so I’m calling to ask if the son of the President of the United States of America is still humble enough to grace us all with his presence?”

Bucky laughed. Victoria Prewitt was one of his oldest friends. They had grown up together with a bunch of other East Hampton kids and had been doing Winter Picnics since they were about sixteen. It basically involved sitting on the beach in the cold on a Sunday afternoon, eating whatever the family cooks had made and drinking copious amounts of champagne. Of course Bucky said yes.

Replacing the phone, he padded back into his room. Steve was awake and Bucky smiled at him as he retrieved his towel from the back of the door.

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“We’re going on a picnic. Some friends of mine do this every year and they’re meeting in about an hour. That okay?”

“Sure,” Steve replied quietly.

Bucky grinned and headed for the shower. He couldn’t believe he’d managed to get to sleep again after the nightmare. He couldn’t believe that Steve had stayed with him for the rest of the night after Bucky had almost accidentally shot him in a half-sleeping state. Steve had been the sweetest, most understanding human being the night before and he hadn’t been at all perturbed when Bucky had clung to him like a child, and the best thing about it was that Bucky didn’t even feel embarrassed about doing it. He’d felt safe, secure, which was more than he’d felt in a long time, even with Boomer sleeping by his side for the last couple of months.

By the time Bucky had cleaned himself up and made his way back into the bedroom, Steve had vacated the bed, presumably in favour of the shower en suite in his own room. He dressed warmly for a day outside – t-shirt, button-down, and hooded sweatshirt – before heading downstairs to find Boomer, who had been strangely missing from his room and was waiting downstairs beside his empty kibble bowl, staring forlornly at it.

~

Maria Hill had called Steve as he was just about to get in the shower. He hastily wrapped a towel around his waist before picking up.

“What’s going on, Steve?” she asked immediately. “I come in this morning to find a notice saying that a firearm was accidentally discharged last night at the Hamptons house, and then you don’t follow up with a phone call. Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Steve replied with a sigh. “We just woke up. It was a bit of a rough night after that happened.”

“’We’?” Hill repeated, suspiciously. “Steve, please don’t tell me that there’s been more incidents like the pool.”

Steve mentally kicked himself.

“No,” he replied hastily. “It’s just that Bucky was up for a while after the gun went off, having a little trouble getting back to sleep and I had to stay up too. He just woke up when the phone rang.”

Hill paused for a moment.

“Anyone of consequence?” she asked finally, seemingly satisfied with Steve’s response.

“Just a friend inviting him to a picnic in about an hour.”

“Alright. Full detail on him today while he’s in the open.”

“Understood,” Steve replied and hung up the phone.

He sighed and ran his hands over his face. He was really going to have to be more careful with his status reports if he was going to completely ignore Fury and Hill’s instructions to keep his distance with Bucky. He didn’t know how the guy would have coped if Steve hadn’t have stayed with him for the rest of the night.

Steve hadn’t been at all surprised when Bucky had immediately snuggled into him, seeing as he had thrown his arms around him the second he had realised that Steve wasn’t injured. The guy had probably felt so guilty, so scared. Steve could only imagine.

Besides, as much as he didn’t want to admit it, it had been really nice to have Bucky sleeping in his arms. It had been a long time since anyone had trusted him as swiftly and completely as Bucky trusted him now. It felt good.

But today he would have to resume his persona as the stoic Secret Service agent. He couldn’t afford to slip up in front of the other two that would have to pull detail with him today. He already had a warning – he couldn’t afford another.

~

Steve was quiet in the car on the way to the picnic. Not that it was really much of a problem seeing as Bucky’s mother called him to see if he was alright. News travelled too fast in the White House. He spent a good ten minutes of the drive reassuring her that he was fine, that the gun had just fallen off the night stand and he’d forgotten to replace the safety. He didn’t want to tell her that he’d had another nightmare, it would only worry her more.

The first week that he’d been in hospital after his burn out, they had tried Bucky on medications to help him sleep. The results had been awful. The meds that they gave him to sleep made him constantly drowsy so they gave him something to wake up again, which in turn made him paranoid and jumpy, which in turn made him hallucinate. Bucky decided that he would rather have the nightmares and live medication-free than be like that. Boomer helped, but Bucky couldn’t fathom how the dog had managed to shut himself out of Bucky’s room.

President Barnes was not completely assured that Bucky’s decision to forgo meds was the best idea, but he was an adult and completely capable of making that decision for himself. All the same, he didn’t want to give her any ammunition.

Everybody was there when Bucky arrived at the beach, already sitting on blankets strewn over the sand, picnic hampers open, champagne bottles popped. A general cry of greeting went up and Bucky spent a good few minutes hugging everyone in sight, the girls peppering his face with kisses and the guys clapping him on the back or the shoulder. Bucky was naturally very tactile and his old friends were more than used to getting hugged or tackled by him. Boomer pleased himself by running off and down to the waves.

For a while Bucky was too wrapped up in the hellos to remember Steve had got out of the car with him and was standing a short distance away, but as soon as he was done, he made a point to introduce him.

“Everybody, this is my…Steve…” Bucky shook his head and laughed. His friends laughed with him - that had come out wrong and they all knew it. “I mean, this is Steve. He’s my…er…if I said Bodyguard I’d feel a bit like Whitney Houston. He’s my Secret Service person, he’s a great guy so be nice.”

He turned to look at Steve, but Steve wasn’t smiling back despite everyone cheerfully greeting him and waving. Bucky frowned slightly but one of the girls leaned over and dragged him back into the group by the wrist and once again he was involved in conversation.

There were three girls and two guys – they had all known each other since they had been small, they had spent summers and Christmases together, they had experimented with each other and matured together. The group wasn’t so much close as they had shared a lot. Even if, as adults, they had nothing else in common, they could still meet for picnics every once in a while and update each other on their lives. Bucky hadn’t seen any of them since being deployed to Afghanistan two years previous. It felt amazing to be with them again. It felt like everything was getting back to normal.

After a while, his thoughts went back to Steve. He kept glancing over his shoulder to find his Secret Serviceman standing stoically nearby, just like the other two who were keeping a watchful eye on the perimeter. He pulled himself up and dusted sand from his jeans before making his way over.

“Hey. Don’t you want to come over and sit? Meet the guys?”

Steve glanced at him coolly.

“I’m fine here, sir. Thank you.”

The look, the tone, both felt like a slap in the face to Bucky. He frowned, not quite sure what to make of it.

“Steve? Everything okay?”

“Yes sir.” There it was again. “Enjoy your picnic.”

And just like that, Bucky was dismissed. He backed away, the good feeling that he’d had since he woke up slowly ebbing away with Steve’s rejection of him.

What had he done? Was Steve actually upset with him about the previous night? Was it because Bucky had accidentally shot at him? Had Bucky been too familiar, because Steve had certainly seemed fine with it at the time, what with the hair-stroking and letting Bucky rest his head on him and falling asleep together. Alright, so it wasn’t quite the regular relationship one usually had with their Secret Serviceman, but Bucky had honestly believed that they were more than that, and had been right from the start. Perhaps he had been gravely mistaken.

Confused and a little hurt, he made his way back to his friends and accepted a plastic champagne flute filled to the brim from Victoria, settling down next to her on the blanket. She snuggled up into him and he draped his arm casually around her shoulders as he attempted to involve himself in the conversation again.

~

“Okay, what did I do?” Bucky burst out in the car journey home. He’d been playing with the zipper of his coat for a good five minutes, looking tired and sullen.

“What?” Steve asked in surprise, giving Bucky a quick sideways glance before turning his attention back to the road.

“Well, you’ve been giving me the cold shoulder all day.” Bucky replied, shifting slightly in the front seat so that he was half turned in Steve’s direction. He bit his lip. “I know that I almost shot you in the head last night, but from what I remember, you were pretty cool with the situation back then. Now this morning you barely look at me, you’re back to calling me ‘sir’, you’re all aloof. What did I do wrong? Did I overstep the line? Just tell me if I did and I won’t do it again, I promise.”

Steve glanced at Bucky again and the sight almost broke his heart. His eyes were full of hurt and he looked almost as tortured as he had at two that same morning after the nightmare. Except this time it was all Steve’s fault. He felt awful.

“It’s not you,” he sighed. Bucky made a face. “It’s not!” Steve insisted and sighed again. “Maria Hill called me this morning – she wanted a status report about the gun incident and I almost let slip that I stayed with you after it happened. I was given a warning, after you slipped in the pool and I was already in there to help. She told me then that I had to keep my distance, that I wasn’t here to be your friend. She said that I shouldn’t blur the lines.”

“Did you agree?” Bucky asked quietly.

“No. In fact, I thought it was the worst thing I could possibly do. If I’d taken a blind bit of notice of how Fury or Hill wanted me to act, I wouldn’t have stayed with you last night. I would have turned around and gone back to my own bed, but that wouldn’t have done you any good. And I know that. And I couldn’t leave you.

You see its fine when it’s just you and me, and it was fine with Sam because I trust Sam. But today, we had two of my colleagues standing a few feet away and if I had acted the way I do when it’s just us, they would have reported me. I wouldn’t even have made it to the end of the picnic before Fury had turned up and demanded my badge and gun. And I don’t think that’s what either of us would really have wanted.”

Bucky looked down at his hands.

“No. But why didn’t you say anything to me instead of just clamming up and letting me think I’d done something terrible?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really have time. One minute we were asleep, and the next you were telling me that we had to be out in an hour, and then Maria called and I had to cover my tracks so that I didn’t get fired on the spot…and I guess I just thought it would be easier to explain later.”

“You still could have given me a heads up,” he muttered. “I mean, what the hell was I supposed to think? Everything was fine at two this morning and then suddenly at ten, you’ve turned into a block of ice.”

Steve sighed again.

“I’m sorry.”

There was silence for a second, and then Bucky smiled genuinely at him.

“It’s okay,” he replied. “We’ve both been kind of assholes now, so I guess we’re even.”

Steve laughed.

“Yeah, I guess we are,” he agreed.

~

By the time they got back to the house, it was like the whole incident had never happened. Bucky watched as Steve locked and bolted the door, and enabled the security alarm. Boomer raced past them both and curled up on the rug in the hallway, making them step over him in order to move into the kitchen.

“Winter Soldier secure,” he said into his radio before removing his earpiece and placing it on the kitchen counter while Bucky went to the cupboard for a bottle of bourbon and two glasses. He started to laugh as he set all three on the counter and unscrewed the bottle cap. “What?” Steve asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Winter Soldier? That’s the code name you guys have for me? Man, that’s so lame!"

Steve grinned as he watched Bucky pour a decent measure of bourbon into each glass.

“Blame Fury,” he replied. Bucky offered him a glass and he hesitated. “I’m not sure I should have that.”

It was full dark by now but still not particularly late. They had been out all day, but Steve still felt like he should be working. Bucky shrugged and grinned at him.

“It’s just us now,” he said quietly. “No need to try and fool anybody.”

Steve looked from Bucky to the glass in his hand and back again.

“Screw it,” he replied, reaching to take the bourbon with one hand whilst loosening his tie and unfastening the top button on his shirt with the other.

They sat at the counter for a while, just talking to each other. Steve had missed out on the group activity that day, so he took the opportunity to ask Bucky about it, to find out about his friends, who they were, how long they had known each other. It turned out that Bucky had dated the girl named Victoria for one summer and they had lost their virginity to each other at fifteen.

Steve felt a flash of something that felt ever so slightly like jealousy but put it down to the second glass of bourbon. Bucky had been drinking champagne for half the afternoon and was now at the stage where he was almost moving in slow motion. His eyes were bright and unfocussed in the orangey light of the kitchen, his smile wider than normal. Steve liked him this way. Bucky caught him staring.

“What is it?”

“Nothing…” Steve said with a smile, swirling the last sip of bourbon around in the glass. “You just…kinda suit being a little tipsy.”

“Are you flirting with me, Steve?” Bucky chuckled, his grin playful and mischievous.

“Do you want me to be?”

It was out of his mouth before he could even think about stopping it.

Bucky stilled, his smile slipping slightly as he looked at Steve and bit his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth for a moment. Then he started to laugh and pushed his empty glass away from him.

“I think,” he said slowly, pushing himself up from the chair, “I should probably go to bed, before I come up with an incredibly inappropriate response that is likely to constitute sexual harassment.” Bucky smiled and began to walk backwards unsteadily. “G’night, Steve.”

“Goodnight…”

Steve watched him walk away and climb up the stairs with Boomer following him, casting glances over his shoulder until he disappeared from sight. The second he did, Steve’s head fell forward onto the counter top and he groaned.

What the hell was he thinking?


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit. I went to edit chapter and ended up accidentally deleting chapter, along with all your lovely comments on it. So sorry!

They didn’t mention it the next day, or the next. But Bucky couldn’t deny that there had been a shift in their relationship. He wanted to blame it on the alcohol but he couldn’t entirely justify that – Steve had initiated and he’d had far less than Bucky had that day. And to be honest, if Bucky had been just a little more drunk, he could probably have guaranteed that he would have pulled Steve onto that kitchen counter and had him right then.

Because he was now acutely aware of an attraction going both ways, and that wasn’t really a good thing. He and Steve could remain friends quite easily without letting on to the Higher Powers, but anything more than that was going to get Steve fired, and Bucky couldn’t have that. He couldn’t have anybody else on his security detail. He trusted Steve. He wanted Steve, not some personality-free goon who was more than willing to let Bucky stew in his own messed up mind. Steve drew buck out of his own mind, he enjoyed Steve’s company, they had common ground, they had trust.

But perhaps Fury and Hill had a point – some boundaries were maybe good. And Bucky really did try.

They pretty much went on as normal. His mother had called about arranging a small party for Bucky’s 26th birthday that was coming up on March 10th. She wanted to hold it in New York – not a huge affair, just some family and friends, enough to fill a small function room in a bar or restaurant. Bucky liked the idea and President Barnes confirmed that she would schedule time off for it and get Natasha to sort the details and get back to him.

Bucky took Steve shopping in Manhattan, or, more to the point, Bucky went shopping in Manhattan and Steve came with him as the Blues Brothers followed at a distance. They had agreed that Steve play the part of the professional Secret Service agent when they were in public together. It wasn’t so bad now that Bucky knew that it was going to happen, but still he couldn’t wait for when they got home and the ice could crack, sweet and warm Steve flooding back.

But still, it was getting increasingly hard for Bucky to keep himself in check when he sat on the couch next to Steve every night, their shoulders bumping each other as they sipped beer from the bottle and shared chips or M&Ms while watching a movie. Bucky was starting to notice the way Steve threw his head back when he laughed, showing a vast expanse of throat that Bucky desperately wanted to touch, to put his lips on the pulse point and suck until he left a mark. And Steve’s laugh itself was enough to make Bucky’s stomach flutter. He had a gentle and easy humour and it attracted Bucky like a magnet.

So Bucky bit his lip, and he smiled and laughed too, and he tried so hard not to lean over on that sofa and pin Steve to it and kiss him for all that he was worth. Because that just wouldn’t accomplish anything, would it?

~

Steve couldn’t quite believe that he’d flirted (and he had – quite blatantly), and for days afterward he had mulled over Bucky’s response to it. It was almost as though Bucky HAD wanted Steve to be flirting with him, and Steve knew that was such a bad idea.

It was even harder not to flirt in the evenings, when it was just the two of them, sitting together on the couch and watching movies. Bucky always seemed to sit a little too close, but Steve found himself not wanting to move. It felt amazing to have another human being feel so comfortable to be around him, who laughed at his terrible jokes. Steve smiled to himself and reached for the back of potato chips in Bucky’s hand, only to have them snatched away before he could get hold of one.

“Hey! Give me those!”

“Nope!” Bucky cackled, leaning backwards and holding the chips just out of reach.

“I could hurt you,” Steve grinned lightly, reaching out to try to grab them out of Bucky’s grasp, but he leaned back even further.

“Do it, I dare you,” Bucky retorted

“Bucky!”

Steve shifted his body to lean over him, but he leaned too far and his extra weight caused Bucky to topple backwards with a shout, bringing Steve down on top of him. Chips flew out of the packet and landed everywhere as Bucky’s back hit the couch and Steve’s chest hit Bucky, causing them both to let out an exclamation of surprise and discomfort. They lay in shock for a split second until Bucky began to laugh and Steve couldn’t help but follow suit. Bucky’s head was tilted back, delicious throat exposed as he cackled gleefully, eyes closed in mirth. Steve’s laughter faded slowly. He was close – too close. As Bucky’s head tilted back, their noses brushed against each other and then Bucky’s own laughter caught in his throat. His blue eyes were dark, pupils huge. Both of their chests were heaving, and not with exertion. All it would have taken was to move an inch but they were both frozen to the spot, neither daring to shatter the tension.

It was a bad plan. A bad, bad plan. And they both knew it.

Steve forced himself to move first, backwards, up into a sitting position and then offered his hand to Bucky to help him sit too. Neither of them said a word and Steve wasn’t sure if it was through embarrassment or something else.

Bucky cleaned up the spilled chips and they watched the rest of the movie in silence, still sitting too close to each other than was necessary until it was finished and Bucky stood, uttering a quiet “goodnight, Steve,” before climbing the stairs to bed.

Steve lay in bed for a whole hour afterwards trying not to think about it and failed miserably. Bucky’s mouth had been so close to his, wet and slick from where he kept biting and licking at them, blue eyes dark. It would have been so very easy for Steve to close the gap, to lean forward just a little and suck that bottom lip into his own mouth, to bring his teeth down over it gently.

Steve bit his own lip as he felt a familiar heat coil in his belly and he groaned, sliding a hand down under the sheet and pressing his palm flat against his steadily growing erection, as if to somehow stop it. He couldn’t be thinking about Bucky like this. Couldn’t be thinking about what that full, wet mouth would feel like on his own, or on his neck, or on…

Steve jumped as there was a short rap on his door and he grabbed a pillow, sitting and covering his lap hurriedly as it opened slowly. Bucky appeared in the doorway, barefoot and dressed in t-shirt and boxers, his hair sticking out at all angles as though he’d been pulling at it. He didn’t say a single word, just slowly walked in and closed the door behind him, leaning on it until the catch clicked into place.

Bucky looked at him in the darkness, eyes roaming over Steve’s bare chest and the pillow covering the bulge under the sheets. Steve felt his cheeks heat and was glad that it was so dark that Bucky wouldn’t be able to tell. He propped himself up on his elbow and watched, his mouth going dry as Bucky wordlessly stripped his t-shirt over his head dropping it unceremoniously on the floor before sliding his underwear down over his hips, kicking them off to join the shirt in a little pile before crossing the room.

Steve’s breath caught at the sight of Bucky’s nude body, lean and muscular from head to toe with strong shoulders and legs that went on forever. He was perfect.

Bucky put a knee onto the mattress and crawled his way up the bed, leaning in as he reached Steve and stopped just short of kissing distance, breathing him in. Steve could barely draw breath, his heart hammering inside his chest as Bucky softly ran the tip of his nose along Steve’s cheek, eyes half closed. Tentatively, Steve raised his free hand and his fingers ghosted over Bucky’s side, the skin beneath them warm and smooth.

Fingers trailed patterns on arms and chests, and lips lightly grazed cheeks and ears and necks as they tried to gauge each other, slowly, softly, hesitantly. And then finally, Steve hooked his fingers into the chain of Bucky’s dog tags, cool and metallic against smooth, warm skin, and pulled him down for a kiss.

Oh and that mouth was so much sweeter than he’d anticipated, soft lips and wet tongue that slowly pushed its way into Steve’s mouth, the way his bottom lip lingered for a split second longer than the top when he kissed. Steve groaned helplessly and wrapped his arms around Bucky’s back, hands sliding up and tracing the muscles of his shoulders and he pulled Bucky down with him onto the bed.

Drawing back slightly, Bucky looked at him with heavily-lidded blue eyes, his jaw slack and his chest rising and falling steeply with every breath. Bucky carefully rolled his hips and watched as Steve’s eyes fluttered fully shut, his head tilting back to expose his throat, back arching slightly away from the bed to press his body into Bucky’s, exhaling a long, shuddering sigh. Bucky slowly lowered his head, mouthing gently at the side of Steve’s neck as he rocked against him again. This time, Steve’s groan echoed around the room.

Swiftly, he hooked his foot around Bucky’s calf and pushed him onto his back. Rolling on top of him, Steve gripped Bucky’s wrists gently and pinned his hands by his head while pressing down with his hips. Bucky’s initial startled gasp turned into a soft moan as Steve licked a long stripe up from his collarbone to his ear, threading their fingers together. He allowed Steve a few moments to breathe him in, to draw his lips lightly over the skin behind his ear, by the hairline, before his fingers flexed against Steve’s had he gently twisted away from the gentle grip.

Bucky wrapped his fingers into Steve’s hair and drew their faces close, lips almost touching, mouth open and panting. His other hand slid confidently down Steve’s body to rest on his right buttock and he pulled closer, hooking his left ankle over Steve’s calf. He was hard against Steve’s stomach and he moaned and gasped with pleasure as Steve pressed down hard with his hips, body sliding easily over sweat-slicked skin.

Steve couldn’t tear his gaze away from Bucky’s face. He was even more gorgeous at this close distance, writhing beneath Steve’s body, miniscule freckles over his nose highlighted by the faint rose glow of his heated skin, tiny drops of sweat beading at his brow and upper lip. Every now and then, whenever Steve increased the pressure against him, his eyes would snap open with a gasp only to flicker closed again a few seconds later as the sensation eased.

He pulled at Steve’s hair as Steve nipped gently at his throat, the fingernails of his right hand digging into skin as he tried to draw Steve closer, body arching up to meet his. Bucky was breathing heavily, his body beginning to tremble and signalling that he was close. Steve pushed himself up on his elbows just in time to watch Bucky tip over the edge, his back arched completely away from the mattress, head thrown back and framed by a dark halo of messed hair, a soft cry escaping his lips. The sight of him caused the pressure inside Steve’s belly to reach breaking point and seconds later he heard himself self moan out loud as the wave of orgasm rushed over him in a burst of stars behind his eyes.

He panted heavily, trying to restore enough oxygen to his brain to help restore his sight, vaguely aware of Bucky rolling them both over to lie on their sides, his arm encircling Steve’s waist and drawing them close, kisses being placed on his cheeks, his forehead, his temples. Steve’s toes and fingers were numb and he flexed them a few times and buried his head in the space between Bucky’s neck and shoulder.

Steve was exhausted, his eyelids starting to close against his will as his breathing stabilised and he fought desperately to stay awake, to look at Bucky, to kiss him again and again and again, but he just couldn’t. He felt a slight pang of despair as the dark blanket of sleep took him over, Bucky’s fingers stroking his side softly, threading through his hair, lips mouthing gently at his cooling skin.


	8. Chapter 8

Bucky woke up lying face-down in a pillow on an unfamiliar bed, and he was alone. The sheets were rumpled and messy, barely covering his backside and legs. The space beside him was empty but still warm when he touched the slight dint in the mattress, telling him that the occupant had not been gone long. Bucky reached out and grabbed the vacant pillow, pulling it to him and burying his face in it, breathing Steve’s scent in deeply. He groaned softly.

It had been the worst idea of his life, and yet the absolute best idea at the same time. When he’d entered Steve Rogers’ bedroom the night before, Bucky had honestly just meant to talk to him. He had lain in bed and tossed and turned, almost pulling his hair out in a desperate attempt not to touch himself elsewhere. It had been an accident, earlier, on the couch. They had over-balanced, toppled over, ended up too close. Bucky didn’t know how he’d stopped himself from pulling Steve towards him, closing the remaining inch of space between them and licking his way into Steve’s mouth. After that, the air had been heavy, tense, electric and as soon as their movie had ended, Bucky needed to leave, needed to be alone and take a few deep breaths and remind himself why this was all such a bad idea.

But he had heard the sound of Steve moving around next door and figured that, since they were both awake, they should probably clear the air. He hadn’t expected to find Steve naked, sitting up in bed and attempting to hide his erection behind a pillow. In that instant, all ideas of talking went directly out of the window as he drank in the sight, the light blush that was visible over Steve’s cheeks even in the dark, the broad shoulders and wide chest that tapered down into the narrowest waist, the shallowness of his breathing, the darkness of his light blue eyes with full-blown pupils.

Bucky had breathed him in, had tasted Steve’s skin on his tongue, allowed himself to become intoxicated on the sensation of him, the pressure, the weight. He had taken and allowed Steve to take right back and Bucky had never known a high like it. It was probably the most intimate he had been with a person in his entire life.

And now he was awake and inhaling the residual scent of Steve from a pillow, desperately trying to cling on to the moment but felt it fading fast. He had really tried to stay away, tried to maintain some boundaries. He was sure Steve had been trying too, but now the morning had arrived and Steve hadn’t stayed until Bucky woke up. Maybe he was already regretting it.

With a sigh, Bucky dragged himself out of bed and made a face as the body fluids that had dried on his stomach the night before cracked and stretched his skin taught. Brushing himself down hastily, he located the clothes he had discarded in the doorway the night before and dressed swiftly, before taking a breath and heading downstairs to face the music.

~

It was scratching that woke Steve from the semi-dream state that he was in. His eyes snapped open as his ears tuned into the noise, before realising that it was only Boomer scratching at the door, desperate to be let on or for somebody to come out and feed him.

He relaxed and became aware of a soft weight across his stomach and, turning his head slowly, saw that Bucky was still sleeping next to him, entirely naked, hair a complete mess, and his arm draped over Steve’s stomach has he lay on his front. Steve couldn’t stop the smile rising to his lips. God, but he was beautiful.

Almost as soon as the thought entered his head, Steve had to push it away again. This had been the worst idea. He should have more strength than this, more resolve, but from the moment Bucky Barnes had stepped into his room, all sense of propriety had been lost to his sinfully hot mouth and confident hands.

He gently threw back the sheets and swung his legs to the floor, dressing quietly so as not to wake Bucky before opening the bedroom door and being pounced upon by a large, excited Labrador. Steve shushed Boomer and then tapped his thigh to get the dog to follow him downstairs, Boomer, tail wagging furiously, looked at the sleeping form of Bucky in the bed before deciding his best bet for food lay with Steve and followed.

The dog ate the kibble sloppily as Steve put on coffee and tried to think of what the hell he was going to do about the Bucky situation. He had already been warned against over-stepping the lines and if anyone ever found out what had happened between the two of them that night, Steve was sure to find himself out of a job faster than he could blink and he would never be allowed to see Bucky again. The thought made his chest ache. Bucky had already made his way so far under Steve’s skin that it physically hurt to imagine a day without seeing his face, his smile, hearing his laugh.

Steve ran his hand over his hair and sighed.

“What the hell am I going to do?” he muttered to himself.

He was just pulling mugs out of a cupboard for the coffee when Bucky appeared in the kitchen, nervously rubbing the back of his neck. He looked so damn endearing; his hair an even bigger mess than it had been the night before, sleep still blurring his eyes slightly. He gave Steve a small smile.

“Hi,” Bucky murmured.

“Hi…” Steve smiled back, just as small, just as unsure. Silence hung in the air as they both looked at each other awkwardly. “Coffee?” Steve asked eventually, somehow finding the will to move. Bucky nodded.

“Sure.”

Steve tried not to notice the way Bucky’s body moved as he walked towards the kitchen counter and pulled himself up onto a stool. He poured the fresh, hot coffee into the mugs and gently pushed one over to Bucky who wrapped his fingers around it tightly.

They stared down into their beverages, at a complete loss at what to say, at how to start. Part of Steve wanted no more than to reach over the counter, take Bucky’s face in his hands and kiss him. But he didn’t really know if that was what Bucky wanted. Had the night before been just the product of the earlier incident, of the sudden increase in sexual tension between them or had they been slowly building up to this day by day?

Steve opened his mouth to say something, but Bucky jumped in first.

“Steve, I…” he began but was in the same instant cut short by the loud buzz of the front gate intercom. Bucky frowned and set aside his coffee, sliding from the stool and padding barefoot out of the kitchen and through the hall. A moment later, he appeared in the doorway and leaned his shoulder against it.

“That was my Aunt Helen at the gate and currently on her way up the driveway,” he said with a rueful grin. “She wants to take me out today.”

Steve breathed out, his stomach unknotting slightly, and nodded.

“I’ll go get dressed,” he replied, picking his mug up to take with him as he went upstairs, passing so close to Bucky in the doorway that he could smell yesterday’s cologne and the scent of sex still clinging to him. Steve bit his lip and forced himself to keep walking so that he didn’t pin Bucky to the doorframe and repeat last night’s actions in the light of Aunt Helen walking through the door at any moment.

This was good, he thought to himself as he ran the shower and gathered clean clothes together. This meant that he had a whole day to collect himself, collect his thoughts, and try to figure out what to do before he was alone with Bucky again.

~

Aunt Helen was Bucky’s dad’s sister. She had married a Broadway producer at nineteen and was widowed by thirty, inheriting millions in fortune. These days, Helen spent her time flitting around her very extensive social circle, staying just shy of being an alcoholic and lavishing attractive young men with gifts when it suited her. She was smart, she was sharp, and she was witty. She was one of Bucky’s favourite people on the planet, except she always tended to get a little too pushy when it came to his love life.

Helen breezed in to the house, decked out head to toe in Chanel and gave him a warm smile and pulled him into a tight hug. After a second, she wrinkled her nose and pushed back, holding him at arm’s length as she looked him up and down with a raised eyebrow.

“Well…somebody certainly had a time of it last night,” she said with amusement. “I take it that the poor unfortunate soul you were doing it with has been turfed out already?”

Bucky grinned and rubbed the back of his neck.

“You could say that…” he murmured. There was no point trying to deny it – he could even smell it on himself.

“Well, you can get your filthy ass in the shower and smarten yourself up, young man,” Aunt Helen replied. “Because they certainly won’t let you into Sushi Yasuda looking like you just got fucked in the back alley.”

Bucky had laughed and ran upstairs for the fastest shower of his life, throwing whatever shirt-and-pants combination came out of the closet first. By the time he got back downstairs again, Steve was waiting in the hallway, earpiece in, and back in full Secret Service agent mode with Aunt Helen circling him like a panther. Bucky bit back a grin.

“This one’s nice…” Aunt Helen mused. “Cuter than the last one,” she added in a side whisper before turning to Steve. “And what’s your name, young man?”

“Steve Rogers, ma’am.”

Steve was trying to keep his eyes firmly forward and Bucky could tell that he wanted to look in his direction. Aunt Helen raised her eyebrows.

“Does he come in packs of four?”

“Careful, Aunt Helen,” Bucky replied with a grin, selecting a jacket from the hallway and slipping it on. “The White House takes sexual harassment charges against its staff very seriously.”

“Damn…” she replied lightly before giving Steve a wicked smile and turned to link arms with her nephew.

Bucky met Steve’s eyes for a second. They were both trying so hard not to laugh.

Aunt Helen dragged him to the best sushi restaurant in town and plied him with sake whilst they ate and she threw a million questions at him. All the while, Steve stood not too far away and watched and listened. Bucky had been about to talk to him about what had happened between them the night before when Aunt Helen turned up. He’d been so nervous, seeing Steve standing there in the kitchen, making coffee in his underwear and looking slightly bashful and absolutely gorgeous. Bucky had wanted to say that he was sorry for taking advantage, that he didn’t want Steve to lose his job. But Steve was standing there in the restaurant, looking at him and smirking as Bucky tried his best to answer Aunt Helen’s quick fire questions and all Bucky wanted to do was kiss that smirk off Steve’s face.

“So, I called your mother and she tells me that you’ve been in the Hamptons for two weeks. Two weeks Bucky and you never called, you’ve not visited. You’ve been on TV apparently – I obviously missed that one. She says you’re getting discharged from the army. Do you know what you’ll do? I’m sure your mother can get you a position on her staff – you speak all those languages fluently, I’m sure you’d do splendidly in the Foreign Office. Or, press liaison – you know how good you are with those vultures, you handle yourself beautifully and you have the political experience…”

Steve was actually fucking laughing at him! He had his hand clamped over his mouth, shoulders shaking with mirth. Bucky bit his bottom lip to hide the smile that was tugging at his own mouth as Aunt Helen continued.

“…and I hope you’ve not been sleeping with that Victoria girl again.”

“No, Aunt Helen.”

“Good. Never like her – piggy eyes.”

“You can’t just dislike people based on their eyes.”

“Why not? People dislike me based on my money.” She took a sip of sake and then turned around to Steve who immediately smothered his mirth and stood up straight. “Do you know who he was sleeping with last night, Steven?”

“I’m sure I don’t, ma’am,” Steve answered mildly, his eyes darting to Bucky who looked away swiftly before a blush could rise. Aunt Helen scoffed.

“Well, some security you are if you don’t triple check IDs at the door!” She replied with a grin before turning back to her nephew. “Seriously though Bucky, we need to get you set up with somebody nice.”

“Not interested, Aunt Helen,” he smiled, eyes flickering in Steve’s direction again. He had stopped laughing, but was smiling at him. Bucky felt his stomach flutter again.

“Well, you can’t go sleeping around for much longer, honey. You deserve somebody who’ll take care of you.” She poured them both more sake and picked up her chopsticks as their food arrived. “Now, I’ve brought you into town with the express purpose of buying you a birthday present. Now, I was going to buy you a car, but you can’t drive right now because of your feet, but I was thinking maybe an outfit for your party? I spotted the most divine suit in D&D that would set off your eyes perfectly…”

Bucky tuned out again, giving his aunt neutral responses as he looked over her shoulder again. Steve grinned again, his cheeks slightly pink. Bucky grinned back at him before biting his lip to quell it. Steve looked away and straightened, mask falling back into place. But he still caught Steve glancing at him through the rest of the day, and Bucky couldn’t ignore the butterflies that appeared every time.

He was seriously going to have a problem keeping his hands to himself later on.

~

“Your aunt is quite a character,” Steve laughed as the door finally closed on Aunt Helen and she drove off home. Steve had tailed them halfway around New York City as they had gone from lunch to all of the designer stores with Helen forcing Bucky to try on a hundred different outfits and buying thousands of dollars worth of clothing, including one incredibly attractive light gray Dolce and Gabbana suit which had been left with the tailor.

“Yes, she is,” Bucky agreed with a laugh, following Steve as they headed into the living room. Steve removed his earpiece again and quickly stripped off his jacket and tie, draping them over a chair.

“Is she always like that?”

“Absolutely,” Bucky replied before reaching out to grasp Steve’s hand and firmly reeled him in. A confident hand reached up to the nape of his neck and pulled Steve down the extra couple of inches. Those soft lips were on his again and Steve gasped in surprise before melting into the kiss, hands gripping Bucky’s shoulders and dragging down over the curve of his sides, coming to rest on his hips and extracting a small huff of breath from Bucky against his lips. Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and pulled back slightly, his bottom lip lingering just a second longer once again and he looked at Steve desperately.

“Tell me you don’t want this,” he murmured, voice cracking slightly. “Tell me you don’t want it and I will stop, I promise I will. I’ll never so much as look at you the wrong way again. But if you don’t…if you don’t tell me that you don’t want this, I swear I am never going to stop kissing you.”

“I do want it,” Steve whispered, lightly brushing the tip of Bucky’s nose with his own and watching those blue eyes flutter closed. “I want it so much it hurts.”

Bucky groaned.

“You weren’t supposed to say that,” he replied brokenly.

“I know…”

“This is such a bad plan…”

“Yes…”

“You don’t care, do you?”

“Not anymore.”

“Good,” Bucky said, his voice suddenly becoming a low growl as his hand slid down Steve’s body, slipping around his waist and pulling him in close, moving his mouth up to speak into Steve’s ear, breath ghosting upon the skin. “Because I’d be lying if I said that I hadn’t been wondering about what this would be like since that day in the pool. That I hadn’t been thinking all day about kissing you, about you pinning me up against a wall and fucking me senseless…”

Bucky’s tongue darted out along the underside of Steve’s earlobe and sucked it into his mouth, biting down gently.

“Shit…” Steve breathed, a jolt of white heat shooting through his belly. Surging forward, Steve fumbled out behind Bucky, catching the arm of the couch and pressed Bucky against it. He arched around it, accommodating as Steve pressed into him, forcing him to bow his back. Reaching up with his free hand, Steve threaded his fingers through Bucky’s hair as he pressed wet, open mouthed kisses against his jaw and down the side of his neck, drawing a soft gasp. Steve stopped and drew back to see Bucky looking at him with lust-filled eyes, bottom lip between his teeth again as his hands left Steve’s waist and dragged around and down, one in front and the other behind, digging his fingers into the muscles of Steve’s backside. He didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until he let out a slow exhale as Bucky’s other palm pressed firm against him through his pants.

Steve watched as Bucky unfastened his belt and popped open the button on the waistband before slowly sliding down the zipper. His hand felt cool as it slid down his skin and underneath the fabric, soft fingers encircling hot hard flesh. Steve’s breath hitched, his mouth slack as Bucky pulled gently up the shaft and twisted his wrist at the head.

“Fuck…” Steve gasped, as the sensation shot through his belly and down his thighs, his eyes never leaving the lightly flushed face of Bucky.

“You can still say stop,” he murmured, back still curved gently over the arm of the sofa, tongue flicking out over his lips delicately to wet them as he pushed his hand back down Steve’s hard length.

“I don’t want you to stop,” Steve replied, reaching out to pull Bucky back upright for a kiss. He moaned into Steve’s mouth, giving Steve the perfect opportunity to press his tongue inside of it, over Bucky’s tongue and against it. As pulled back Bucky caught it with his lips, sucking on it with a soft groan and Steve would be fucked if he wasn’t the most turned on he’d ever been in his life.

They attacked each other’s clothes, fingers leaving skin to fumble at buttons and belt buckles, pulling shirts over shoulders and getting them caught on elbows, dragging pants and underwear down over hips and thighs and kicking off shoes, leaving them all in a haphazard pile on the floor.

Steve was pushed back onto the couch, breathless from the mad struggle with clothing and dizzy from the sight of Bucky, naked and perfect, rolling his thick bottom lip between his teeth as he climbed into Steve’s lap. Bucky’s cock stood proud, curving out slightly and away from his stomach and Steve pressed his lips against it. Bucky moaned deliciously and Steve placed the flat of his tongue against the shaft, feeling its wet roughness against the smooth hardness as he licked upwards and over the slit. This time he was rewarded by a sweet, breathy groan and Bucky’s fingers slowly curling into his hair. He sucked the soft, engorged head into his mouth and sucked, inching further and further and then back up, finding a rhythm quickly, fingers holding onto Bucky’s thighs like an anchor.

He lost himself in it, in the heaviness of Bucky’s cock against his tongue, the fullness of his mouth, the scent of his skin – a heady mixture of soap and musk that made him dizzy, and the delightful moans spilling from Bucky’s mouth. He could have been there minutes or hours but it was like nothing else in the world mattered except this, and he probably would have stayed there if it hadn’t been for Bucky prising the fingers of one hand away from his hip and bringing them to his mouth.

Steve’s eyes opened and he looked up through his eyelashes as Bucky slowly sucked Steve’s fingers into his mouth, tongue swirling around them, coating them in spit all the way down to the second knuckle. He was mesmerised as Bucky removed them from his mouth and began to guide Steve’s hand down and around, between the cleft of his behind and over the tight opening which was already wet and slick with spit. Steve groaned and he let Bucky’s hardness slip from his mouth with an obscene, wet pop, slapping back into Bucky’s stomach as Steve circled his finger around the ring of muscle, his cheeks starting to burn.

“Are you sure?” he asked breathlessly.

Bucky’s fingers tightened in Steve’s hair as he brought their faces close, breathing shallow.

“There is nothing you could do to me Steve that I wouldn’t want you to do,” Bucky murmured.

That was all the permission Steve needed, pressing his finger forward gently to breach the opening. Bucky sucked in a breath and Steve took the opportunity to press his lips to Bucky’s throat, sucking and nipping his way down the skin over the pulse point as he pushed in to the first knuckle and back out, and then in again.

Scratch what Steve had thought earlier about never being more turned on in his life – this overtook it by a mile. Bucky’s fingers tightened in his hair so much that Steve’s eyes watered, and the noises he was making were high and needy as Steve worked him open slowly, his hips starting to rock backwards as Steve moved a little deeper. By the time Steve slid a second finger in, Bucky was practically fucking back onto his fingers, his lips clamping over Steve’s earlobe once again and sucking hard, his breath coming in ragged huffs.

The heat is his belly spread warmly through his thighs and coiled around deep inside him. When he crooked his fingers, Bucky cried out, his mouth leaving Steve’s ear as he sat up and threw his head back, eyes closed. His hands settled on Steve’s shoulders and smoothed down his forearms as Steve’s fingers continued to work in and out of him, a little deeper, a little faster.

“Shit, that’s good…” Bucky gasped, his head lolling forward, blue eyes fluttering open. His pupils were so big that his eyes looked black, lips wet and slick from where he had never stopped biting them. Another bolt of heat flooded him as he watched Bucky raise his own hand to his mouth and lick a long stripe up his palm, coating it thoroughly before delving down between their bodies and wrapping his fingers around Steve’s leaking erection and resuming the rhythm he’d started earlier, pulling gently up the shaft and ending at the head with a squeeze and a twist before sliding back down, that left Steve panting within seconds.

What had started slow was now fast, erratic and desperate as they hurtled towards the edge, Steve’s fingers fucking deep into Bucky, curling inside him every so often and making him cry out to the empty room as Steve was pulled and twisted and squeezed gorgeously until…

“Oh god, Steve…I’m going to come…I’m…ohhhh…!”

Because Steve was already there, head thrown back against the couch cushion, mouth slack as a long, drawn out groan escaped it as the muscles in his stomach tightened and his thighs tensed and he was spilling all over himself in a rush of heat. His fingers faltered in their rhythm, and he thrust them deep, curving them inwards one last time. Steve’s eyes snapped open just in time to see Bucky’s orgasm wash over him, his eyes wide and biting his bottom lip so hard it could break the skin, shoulders shuddering as his come spattered over the fingers that he had wrapped around his cock in the last few seconds.

Bucky’s head fell forward onto his and they both sucked in large gulps of air. Steve gently moved his fingers, but Bucky still hissed in slight discomfort as they slid from him. He started to laugh, light and breathy.

“Fuck…”

“Yeah…” Steve agreed, running his fingertips lightly over Bucky’s back. Bucky swallowed hard, his chest still rising and falling rapidly.

“You don’t want to change your mind now, do you?”

Steve smiled and run his hands all the way up and into Bucky’s hair, pulling him down and kissing him fiercely, wordlessly telling him that no, he didn’t want to change his mind. Not ever.

“Take me to bed,” he whispered against Bucky’s lips, “And make me never want to leave it.”


	9. Chapter 9

It was after midnight when Bucky felt a rough wet nose nudging against his cheek and he woke up to find Boomer staring at him despondently. Bucky groaned softly and shifted in the bed to let the dog up, but his back hit something solid, something warm and naked that snaked their arm around Bucky’s middle and pulled him close. Boomer jumped up into the vacated space as Bucky smiled and pulled the dog to him.

“I’m sorry buddy,” he whispered into the coarse golden hair of Boomer’s neck. “You probably think you’re being replaced, don’t you?”

The Labrador just snuggled in next to him and laid his head on his paws in response.

Bucky sighed contentedly and ran his fingers over a sleeping Steve’s forearm. He didn’t quite remember ever feeling so safe before. Nothing could reach him here.

The next time Bucky awoke, it was to a soft mouth placing small, lingering kisses over his shoulders, the base of his neck, his ear. A smile spread across his face as he hummed his pleasure and opened his eyes, pressing back against Steve as arms wrapped around him and held him tightly.

“Good morning,” he murmured,

“Hi,” Steve replied quietly into his ear before resuming kissing it and beginning to work his way back down. Bucky chuckled to himself and reached his hand back to scratch gently at the short hairs at the back of Steve’s neck.

“Well, this is nice to wake up to…”

“Hmmm…” Steve replied as he continued to kiss over Bucky’s shoulder again and down his forearm before smoothly rolling Bucky towards him and onto his back. Light blue eyes looked down on him playfully and Bucky reached up to softly stroke Steve’s cheek, delighting when Steve’s eyes closed and he leaned into the touch for a moment before dipping his head to resume his kissing, this time across Bucky’s chest.

Bucky chuckled as those soft lips pressed gently against his skin, mapping him out from his collarbone and down between his sternum. Then they stopped as they reached a place where Bucky’s skin was taught, thinner, softer. Steve drew back and frowned slightly, his finger running lightly over the scar, about an inch wide that sat just above his seventh rib.

“What’s this from?” Steve asked him.

Bucky glanced down and placed his hand over Steve’s.

“It’s just from Afghanistan…” he began, but Steve’s hand had already slid out from under his as he straightened in the bed, sheets pooling down around his waist as his frown deepened and he saw Bucky’s body properly in the light.

“My god, you’re covered in them,” Steve breathed, his voice hinting at horror. Bucky squirmed under his touch and reached out to firmly grasp both of his hands to keep them still, lacing their fingers together.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “A souvenir from the Taliban.”

Steve looked at him with an unreadable expression, flexing his fingers slightly.

“From the beatings?” He asked. Steve immediately looked like he regretted asking when Bucky inhaled deeply through his nose. “I’m sorry, forget I asked…”

“No, it’s fine,” Bucky replied with a short smile, shifting on the pillow. “Some of them are from when my skin split from the force of a blow, like this one here,” he moved Steve’s hand back to the inch-wide scar above his rib. “Those ones got treated, glued up so they didn’t get infected. They didn’t want me dying of blood poisoning. But then there are ones like….these…” he moved Steve’s hand again, across his stomach to his other side where a myriad of tiny pale marks spotted his skin, “…caused by the sand. It was fine enough when it was dry, a little hard but nothing too bad. But when it was wet, when they pinned me down on it and I fought against them it was like broken glass. It got embedded in my skin, cut it open and never got cleaned out.”

“I had no idea,” Steve murmured with a frown.

Bucky smiled again and brought Steve’s hand up, gently kissing the knuckles that sat snugly between his. He didn’t mind telling Steve. Really, he didn’t. Steve already knew the more intimate details of what had gone in the interrogating room in Afghanistan, he knew about the tortures that haunted Bucky’s dreams, knew that his mind wasn’t quite healed.

But this was the first time Steve had really seen him naked. The previous times didn’t count – half covered with water in the pool, in the dim light of the living room on the couch, in the darkness of the bedroom. His hands had roamed all over Bucky’s body, his mouth had traced hard lines, but this was the first time that he got to see.

“I just hope I’m not a disappointment in the light,” he mumbled with a rueful grin. Steve’s eyebrows quirked up.

“Are you kidding me? Knowing that just makes you even more beautiful than you already were,” Steve said, leaning forward to place his forehead gently against Bucky’s. “Which, by the way, was pretty much perfect in the first place.”

Bucky bit his lip to hide the genuine smile that followed the warmth of affection flooding through him.

“How do you always know the right thing to say?”

“I don’t,” Steve murmured, brushing his lips just over Bucky’s. “I’m just always honest.”

Bucky kissed him then, letting go of Steve’s hand to wrap his arms around those smooth, muscular shoulders and pull his body down, flush against his. It wasn’t the same kind of kissing as the night before or even the night before that – not heated or passionate nor curious and exploratory, but gentle, sweet. Bucky could probably even go as far as to say it was loving - it set every part of him aglow. They stayed there for a while, kissing softly, Bucky’s fingers running over the short hair at the back of Steve’s head, and Steve’s hands stroking slowly down his sides with a firm pressure.

“Oh my god,” Bucky groaned as Steve pulled back finally, running the tip of his nose up the side of Bucky’s cheek. “We are so screwed, you know that right?”

Steve grinned and rolled away onto his side, gathering Bucky up to lie facing him.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I should probably start job hunting now.”

“No, you won’t,” Bucky said seriously. “Nobody is going to find out. Outside of this house we’re going to put on the masks and we’re going to act all professional and nobody is going to figure this out.”

“No?” Steve asked, reaching out and pulling Bucky close. “We’re just going to hide?”

Bucky sighed and took Steve’s face between his hands gently.

“If anyone finds out, then you get taken away from me. You get taken away immediately and I never see you again, and I can’t cope with that Steve. I get somebody else, some goon in dark shades who doesn’t know me, who doesn’t understand me and who I don’t trust. I go back to square one, not being able to trust the person protecting me. I trust you with my life, Steve. I don’t want to lose that, lose you and end up with another Rumlow…”

Bucky tailed off and bit his lip, frightened that he’d said too much as he saw something flicker in Steve’s eyes. He watched as Steve looked away for a second and then a smile ghosted on his lips.

“You trust me with your life?”

Bucky exhaled in relief and rolled his eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching up slightly.

“One hundred percent,” he replied softly. It was the truth.

“That’s a lot of pressure to put on a person,” Steve grinned.

“What, you think you can’t handle it?”

“Oh, I can handle it.”

“Handle the pressure, or handle me?”

“Both.”

“Are you sure?”

Bucky’s grin was wide as Steve moved fast, grabbing his wrists and gently pinning them by Bucky’s head and rolling on top of him, knee between his thighs. Bucky gasped sharply and fell still as Steve looked at him, mouth just an inch away once again.

“Am I okay to do this?” Steve whispered. He was testing Bucky’s truth.

“If you were anyone else, I would have probably tried to kill you right now,” he answered quietly. “I told you – one hundred percent trust.”

Steve didn’t move and neither did Bucky, but the air between them was beginning to sizzle once again. Until Boomer barked from the doorway. Steve immediately released Bucky as the dog bounded onto the bed and invaded the space between them, pushing Steve back. Bucky laughed and pulled the dog into a hug.

“I think Boomer is a little jealous at all the attention you’re getting, Steve.”

Steve smiled at him and Boomer allowed him to scratch his ears graciously to show there were no hard feelings.

“It’s alright,” he replied. “We should probably be getting up anyway.”

He leaned over and kissed Bucky lightly on the nose before rolling out of bed and wandering naked out of Bucky’s room. They had left all their clothes strewn across the living room floor.

“Make coffee!” Bucky called after him.

“Make your own coffee, I’m not your housekeeper!” Steve called back.

“Punk!”

“Jerk!”

Bucky laughed and fell back against the pillows again. He couldn’t remember the last time he was this happy.

“Maybe we should just go to Starbucks instead?”

“As long as you’re buying,” Steve grinned at him as he stuck his head back around the door. “But you’ll have to get dressed, because I don’t think they tolerate naked drive through.”

“Do YOU tolerate naked drive through?” Bucky shot back.

Steve paused, still smiling before replying,

“We’ll have to find out sometime.”

Bucky bit his lip as a familiar heat shot through his belly. Steve smirked and disappeared again, leaving Bucky to quash the desire to run after him and pin him to a wall. Boomer looked at him and whined, and Bucky sighed.

“Okay, okay, I get it. Hungry dog wants fed, human needs to stop thinking about his dick.” He threw the sheets back and found some discarded clothes in a crumpled heap and pulled them on before heading downstairs with Boomer close at his heels, leaving Steve to shower alone…against his better judgement.


	10. Chapter 10

“Rogers.”

“Hey there, soldier,” Natasha’s voice replied on the other end of the call. “How’s it going?”

Steve grinned even though there was nobody in the kitchen to see it.

“It’s going fine,” he replied cheerful. “Everything is all okay.”

“Really? Last time I spoke to you, you were about ready to punch him. Thought you’d be at the stage now where you wanted to kill him.”

“No,” Steve said mildly, propping his elbows up on the kitchen counter as he watched Boomer chase a rubber chicken around the floor. Bucky was in the shower. “We’re actually getting along just fine now.”

“Oh.” Natasha paused. “That’s actually surprising.”

“Well, once we discovered that we had served in the same unit in Afghanistan, he warmed up pretty quickly.”

“Ah,” replied Natasha, understanding. “So the reason that you keep failing to call in status reports to Maria Hill is because you’re too busy swapping war stories, right?”

Steve groaned and his head fell forward onto the counter.

“Shit. I’m sorry, Nat…”

“Hey, don’t apologise to me, it’s your ass on the line!” Natasha interrupted. “This is the President’s Son that you’re taking care of. Her only son, who she almost lost twice and is in a very vulnerable state right now. We need you to update every day, Rogers. A two minute call, an email, anything.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve repeated, sitting back up. “I swear I’ll do better.”

“Good,” Natasha replied and hung up a short while later.

Steve could still hear Bucky in the shower upstairs and took the opportunity to send Hill a small email. He was really going to have to put more effort in with daily status updates, or it wouldn’t be the fact that he was fucking President Barnes’ son that got him kicked out of his job after all.

~

“Have you ever been sailing, Steve?” Bucky asked, looking over at him. Steve raised an eyebrow, never taking his eyes from the road.

“I grew up in Brooklyn. What do you think?”

Bucky grinned and took a sip of his double shot mocha as they pulled out of the Starbucks drive through. It was a cold day but it was still and sunny – typical for early March.

“I’ve got a small motor yacht moored at the harbour” he said. “It’s a really nice day to take a trip out – calm waters, clear skies. Doesn’t need anyone but me to steer it, so it can just be the two of us. What do you think?”

Steve’s mouth twitched at the corners.

“I’ll have to call it in,” he replied. “Let the guys at the house know where we are, call Hill…”

“That’s fine,” Bucky grinned. “You have to take my security safely, I understand.”

Steve drove them to the harbour and made all the relevant calls whilst Bucky called in on the harbourmaster and got the boat ready. Steve was deeply impressed, standing on the jetty looking at the ‘small’ yacht. It was nothing like he had imagined it to be – painted a smooth metallic green with white, light pine decking, and seriously quite large for a boat. Bucky beamed down at him, hand outstretched.

“Want the tour?”

Steve nodded, dumbstruck, and allowed himself to be pulled aboard.

It was so clean, so shiny. The deck housed a semi-circular couch, cream and green pin-stripe with plush cushions and a mahogany table. A sun shade covered it, but Steve also noticed that there was a rain cover that would envelop the whole deck too. Inside was more plush cream in the shape of soft carpet underfoot and more mahogany – the wheel, the panels, another table. There were screens set into the panels and buttons and levers and Steve had no idea what any of them were for, but they looked impressive. The stairs were also mahogany and led down to a tiny kitchenette with a couch and a tv, and branching off was a small bathroom, and a room with a double bed, decked out in the same cream and green pin-stripe. The whole thing was gorgeous.

“This is yours?” Steve asked. “I mean, you actually own this thing?”

Bucky folded his arms over his chest and grinned.

“Yes, I do. It was my 21st birthday present, and yes, I know I’m an entitled brat.”

“You certainly are,” Steve replied, shaking his head but grinning. Bucky looked so damn pleased with himself. Steve wanted nothing more than to pull him in and kiss him, but alas, they were still docked and the harbour was full. Thankfully, Bucky seemed to read his mind.

“What do you say to starting this thing up and taking it somewhere a bit more private?”

“I’d say that sounds perfect.”

~

Half an hour later they were sitting in the Atlantic Ocean, Steve sitting with Boomer on the outside couch with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders as Bucky dropped the anchor, killed the engine, and walked outside holding a bottle of Krug Grande Cuvee and two glasses.

“I thought we could open this,” he said, tilting the bottle slightly for Steve to see. Steve’s eyes went wide.

“I can’t drink that,” he protested.

“Why not?” Bucky asked, crossing to sit next to him on the couch. “You can have one glass, probably two. It’ll wear off by the time you have to drive again.”

“It’s not that,” Steve replied as Bucky started to uncap the bottle. “It’s the fact that you’re holding a two hundred dollar bottle of champagne and you’re planning on giving it to me.”

Bucky laughed and expertly thumbed the cork. It popped and shot across the deck, causing Boomer to bark and chase after it. Bucky picked up a glass and started to pour.

“It’s actually closer to three hundred dollars, and you’re worth it.”

He held out the glass for Steve to take and grinned when a light flush crossed his cheeks. Their fingers brushed briefly as Steve took it. Bucky poured a glass for himself and then reclined across the cushions, pulling Steve towards him and settling him between his legs, head resting on Bucky’s shoulder. Steve took a sip of the champagne and sighed contentedly.

“This is nice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And I’m not just talking about the champagne,” Steve turned his head slightly and grinned. Bucky smiled back and kissed the tip of his nose. “I’ve never actually been on a boat.”

Bucky sighed and began stroking his fingers softly through Steve’s hair.

“I sometimes forget that not everyone grew up like I did,” he said softly.

“Ah, it wasn’t so bad for me.”

“Tell me,” Bucky asked. Steve chuckled.

“I dunno, it’s pretty boring.”

“Tell me anyway. I’d love to know more about you.”

Steve exhaled softly and took a sip of his champagne before replying.

“Well, I was brought up by my mom. Dad died when I was little. I was a really skinny, sick little kid.”

“No way!”

“Yes, way!” Steve grinned. “I had asthma, I got pneumonia a couple of times, scarlet fever, joint problems…”

“Shit, Steve!” Bucky laughed. “What the hell happened to you?”

“I joined the army!” he replied cheerfully. “I started getting a bit better by the time I got to college, I grew a little taller, hit the gym a bit. Then my mother was diagnosed with lung cancer and she had to stop working and I had to quit college. I ended up working three jobs just to keep us in a home and it was getting increasingly hard to pay her medical bills. So I joined the army.”

“They should not have taken you with those health problems,” mused Bucky, still softly stroking Steve’s hair. “How did you bypass that?”

“One of the doctors took pity on me I guess. Anyway, by that time I had grown out of the asthma and the time working out had helped with the joint problems. I was okay. I did okay.”

“You did better than okay, Soldier!” Bucky chuckled, pressing a kiss to the top of Steve’s head. “How is your mom doing now?”

Steve paused for a moment.

“She died, six weeks after I rotated back to the States.”

Bucky bit his lip.

“Shit. I’m sorry. That’s really sad.”

“It’s okay,” Steve replied, shifting around on the sofa and setting his now-empty glass down on the table before kneeling between Bucky’s thighs and reaching up to kiss him softly. “It was two years ago. I’m a big boy now, I can handle it.”

Bucky smiled and kissed Steve again. His Steve. Bucky’s Steve. Steve that used to be skinny and sick but was now strong enough to pin Bucky down with almost no effort. Not that Bucky had ever made him exert any effort thus far, and probably never would.

“Like you can handle me?” he murmured against Steve’s lips.

“Oh, I can handle you,” Steve grinned, drawing back slightly.

“Can you?”

“Yeah.”

Bucky drew back a little further and raised his champagne glass to his lips, taking the tiniest sip, barely enough to wet his lips, which he then licked deliberately, watching Steve’s eyes follow the movements of his tongue.

“Prove it.”

~

Steve was already half hard as Bucky slipped from the couch, champagne glass still help loosely in one hand as he stood and pulled Steve up with the other. They left Boomer on the deck, playing with the discarded bottle cork and Bucky led Steve inside, both shedding their coats as they went down the mahogany stairs and into the small bedroom in the belly of the yacht. Bucky pushed him back against the door gently and Steve’s weight caused it to swing closed.

Bucky’s eyes were wickedly playful as he pressed his free hand briefly against Steve’s hip before unbuckling his belt and popping open the buttons on Steve’s pants with one hand. Steve gasped as Bucky’s hand, cold from being outside, ran lightly over the front of his underwear and pulled them out and the waistband and down. Steve assisted in working them over his hips and pushed until they rested on the tops of his thighs.

Bucky’s eyes never left Steve’s face, a smile playing at his mouth. Steve watched as Bucky tipped the glass back one last time and drained the contents before dropping to his knees and letting the glass fall to the floor. As his lips ghosted over the head of his now-erect cock, Steve realised that Bucky hadn’t swallowed his drink.

The light bubbles of the pale gold liquid surrounded his flesh, cool against the heat of Bucky’s tongue dragging along the underside of the shaft, lips keeping a tight seal. Steve groaned loudly at the differing sensations concentrated in the same area, at the intense wetness, the bubbles that tickled, the tongue that swirled and lapped, the air that hit his skin as Bucky’s mouth moved back up to the lip, sharp and cold. He buried the fingers of a hand in Bucky’s hair and tugged gently.

Bucky was still watching him, on his knees, his hands anchored on the back of Steve’s thighs and blue eyes looking up at him through thick dark eyelashes, gauging his reactions. Steve was dizzy in the knowledge that Bucky was giving him deliciously slow blow job with the most expensive drink that Steve had ever had in his mouth.

Bucky’s mouth moved again, inching all the way down the shaft, right to the base, his nose touching the skin on Steve’s belly, his chin nudging the two globes that hung heavy between Steve’s thighs. The head of his cock hit the back of Bucky’s throat and Steve saw stars, head hitting the wooden door with so much force that he thought it might have cracked. Bucky made a noise that was halfway between a choke and the most appreciative moan Steve had ever heard before sliding his mouth back up and off, a few droplets of pale champagne spilling from his lips and rolling down the side and onto his throat. He looked at Steve very deliberately before slowly swallowing the liquid and running the back of his hand over his mouth, a wicked smile playing about his lips as he got to his feet again.

Steve reached out and grabbed hold of Bucky’s sweater, dragging him in and reaching up to tangle his fingers in the soft dark hair of his head and pull him in for a kiss. Bucky’s mouth was open and receptive, allowing Steve easy access to lick his way inside and taste himself on Bucky’s tongue, mingled with the sweet flavour of champagne. Bucky’s lips suddenly clamped down on Steve’s tongue and so hard that Steve’s knees almost buckled with the flash of heat that hit his belly.

“Fucking hell,” he gasped as Bucky let go. “You are the dirtiest fucking brat that I have ever encountered.”

Bucky smiled sweetly at him, sliding a hand down between them and running the tip of his thumb lightly over the head of Steve’s cock, scratching ever so gently with his fingernail. Steve bit his lip to suppress a moan.

“Oh, I can be so much dirtier,” he murmured.

“Really?”

“Yeah. You want to find out, Stevie?”

Steve really, really did. His fingers were shaking as he stripped Bucky of his many layers as fast as he could with Bucky still thumbing at his hard flesh and his lips sucking their way across Steve’s neck, distracting him greatly from the task in hand until he could push Bucky away and onto the bed, watching him bounce slightly on the mattress. He felt a little self conscious under that intense blue gaze as Bucky, lying there completely naked and running his hand achingly slowly up the length of his cock, watched Steve rid himself of his own clothes.

He finally climbed onto the bed and into the space that Bucky made for him between his legs, settling over him and resting his weight on one arm. Bucky let go of himself and reached up to pull Steve down, still grinning wickedly as he licked a long wet stripe up Steve’s throat and murmured in his ear.

“Do you want to finger me open like you did last night, Steve? Get your fingers all nice and slick and push them into me? Make me moan and beg for more?”

And then Steve realised that he had been wrong – he couldn’t handle this at all, because Bucky’s voice was low and husky, his breath warm on Steve’s ear, lips just brushing his skin as he murmured the filthiest words to him, and this had never happened to Steve before. His breath hitched and his arm wavered a little, head falling forward onto Bucky’s shoulder as he failed to hide the groan of arousal the bubbled up from his chest. Bucky’s fingernails scraped lightly over the back of Steve’s neck, just below the hairline and he chuckled lightly.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” he murmured and Steve managed to nod. Because, oh yes, he wanted to do that so much. The memory of the night before was still so vivid – Bucky straddling him on the couch, cock in Steve’s mouth and blue eyes dark and wide, mouth slack as Steve push spit-slick fingers inside of him.

Bucky’s arm snaked out and fumbled about in a drawer for a moment, distracting Steve some more as he worried an earlobe between his teeth softly until he found what he was looking for. Steve pushed up and away, his ear slipping from Bucky’s mouth as a cold gel was squeezed onto his fingers and the bottle rolled away to the other side of the bed. His mouth went dry as he watched Bucky squirm under him, planting his feet on the bed and opening his thighs wide, tilting up his hips.

“Come on,” Bucky said softly, one hand on Steve’s wrist, guiding him into position as the other pulled his head down again. Bucky kissed him softly, his bottom lip lingering a split second longer as always, and then he raised his eyes and looked at Steve through his eyelashes again.

The eye contact was intense as Steve’s index finger breached the tight ring of muscle easily and Bucky’s eyes fluttered closed, lower lip sucked in between his teeth. God, but he was so warm, his finger being enveloped in it and Steve looked down, fascinated by it, how Bucky gasped softly as his finger slid inside slowly, up to the first knuckle, then the second, then all the way in. It slid out just as smoothly and Bucky grasped Steve’s shoulder firmly and buried the fingers of his other hand into Steve’s hair, drawing him up and close, eyes never leaving Steve’s face.

He felt the flush creep over his cheeks again, not embarrassed, not even that self conscious anymore, but because it all so much, so raw, and the noises that Bucky was making went straight to Steve’s cock. He became more pliable, more relaxed and soon Steve increased everything, deeper, a little faster and Bucky loved it, his hips beginning to grind down on Steve’s hand, moans getting louder, longer.

“Tell me what you want, Steve,” Bucky said, running his hand up the length of Steve’s forearm.

Steve wanted to. He really wanted to tell Bucky just how much he wanted to bury himself inside of him and feel that tight wet heat envelop his cock, but his mouth wouldn’t work. His flush increased.

“Oh my god, you’re so bashful.” Bucky laughed, his voice breathless. “It’s just a couple of little words Steve, you can do it.” 

But Steve couldn’t, his voice refused to work, refused to tell. Bucky raised one eyebrow at him.

“Okay,” he replied softly. “Shall I tell you what I want?” Steve nodded, his fingers curling slightly inside Bucky, making him throw back his head with a shout. Bucky sucked in a few breaths and pulled Steve back down to him, breathing hotly in his ear. “I want you to fuck me Steve. I want you to take out your fingers and stick your cock straight in, and then I want you to fuck me so deep, so hard and so fast that I forget everything but your name and scream it as I come all over myself. And I want that right now. Can you do that for me Steve?”

Oh god, and Steve could. He complied immediately, removing his fingers smoothly and pushing Bucky’s right leg upwards by the thigh so that his knee was against Steve’s ribcage. In the second that he took hold of himself firmly and pushed the head of his cock against the slick opening he knew exactly who was in control here. Bucky could tell him to do anything right now and Steve would do it, would give him anything he wanted.

“Fuck yes….” Bucky gasped into his ear as Steve steadily pushed in, inch by agonising inch and until they were both panting and Steve’s legs were shaking with the effort it took to not sink himself in all at once. The noise he made as he bottomed out was close to a whimper and it took him a second to gather himself and begin to roll his hips because the tightness around him was just too good. He was so distracted by it that it gave Bucky ample opportunity to suck on Steve’s ear again and that just made it harder for Steve not to draw back and slam into him.

He managed to establish a rhythm that he could cope with, shallow and slow, trying to make sure he didn’t just come right there and then with the long drawn out moans spilling from Bucky’s open mouth. Bucky’s head tilted back, eyes closed and fingernails digging into Steve’s scalp as he asked for more.

Steve gave it to him, building up over the next few strokes until he was pushing deeper, drawing back further…

“Come on, Steve,” Bucky gasped. “Come on, fuck me so hard baby.”

…and slammed his hips forward. Bucky’s eyes flew open and his back arched away from the bed, a strangled cry forcing its way out of him. Again and again, Steve drove hard into him and the moans got louder, thinner…

“Oh god, that’s it. Right there….fuck me….fuck…”

“Shut your fucking whore mouth!” Steve managed to gasp, sitting back and pushing Bucky’s other thigh up. Bucky started to laugh but as his legs were pushed back lifting his hips up further, the angle changed and deepened and the laughter tailed off into a groan. His fingers dug into the bottom sheet as Steve fucked him good and hard, the heat in his belly coiling fast and tight and the sound of flesh smacking flesh the only thing to be heard above Steve’s ragged breaths and Bucky’s strangled cries.

It was on him before he knew it, white hot heat shooting through Steve’s thighs and belly in an instant and he barely managed to pull out of Bucky in time, a white string of thick semen covering the sheet and the top of Bucky’s thigh. Bucky cried out in distress at the sudden loss of pressure and Steve managed to muster enough wits and energy to quickly slide three fingers of his left hand into the space that his cock had just vacated and curved them sharply inwards and his right hand fast pumped Bucky’s shaft, the head already leaking pre-come. It only took him four strokes before Bucky reached orgasm, coming hard all over his taut stomach and shouting Steve’s name.

Spent, Steve rolled away onto his back, his chest rising and falling fast and his heart hammering against his rib cage as he ran his hands shakily over his sweating face.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, turning to Bucky who was breathing even harder, eyes closed.

“Yeah…” he breathed. “Just….give….me….minute….”

Steve huffed in exhausted amusement and closed his own eyes as he concentrated getting his breathing under control.

~

He was woken by his phone ringing, shrill in the quiet of the yacht’s belly. Steve sat up sharply and began searching around for his pants, pulling them from the pocket just in time to pick up the call on the final ring.

“Rogers.”

“Hey, it’s Ryan,” the voice on the other end replied. It was one of the Secret Servicemen staying at the house. “Are you guys still out on the water?”

Steve blinked and remembered.

“Yes. Why?”

“Because there’s a storm rolling in,” Ryan replied. “You might want to tell Bucky to cut his boat trip short and get back here before you’re stuck.”

Steve hung up and checked the time. They had been asleep for hours, obviously having passed out in a post-coital haze. Gently, Steve shook Bucky by the shoulder.

“Bucky?”

“Hmmm…?” Came the sleepy reply.

“Bucky, wake up. There’s a storm coming in – we gotta go.”

Bucky groaned and buried his face in the pillow for a second before pushing himself to his elbows and squinting at Steve.

“How long was I out?”

“A couple of hours,” Steve murmured with a soft smile, pulling up his pants and fastening the buttons again.

“Wow,” Bucky replied, his voice husky with sleep. “I guess you wore me out!”

“You wouldn’t let me do anything less,” Steve retorted. Bucky grinned and Steve searched around for the rest of their clothes, untangling them from the untidy pile. When he straightened, Bucky was watching him, eyes soft. “Are you okay?” Steve asked with a mild frown.

Bucky smiled gently.

“Yeah…yeah, I’m great,” he murmured. “I should get dressed.”

“Yeah….”

They looked at each other for a second before Bucky’s grin widened and he sat forward, crawling his way across the bed to Steve. Kneeling up, he placed a hand on either side of Steve’s face and kissed him gently.

“I think I may just adore you a little bit.”

Steve smiled.

“Only a little bit?”

“Well, we’ve only known each other a few weeks,” Bucky replied cheerfully. “It’s a little early for full-on adoration.”

Steve felt a warmth begin in his chest and he kissed Bucky back.

“In that case,” he murmured against Bucky’s smiling lips. “I think I might just adore you a little bit too.”


	11. Chapter 11

The storm lasted for two days, starting about ten minutes after they had returned to the harbour. It left them house-bound for most of the time, but Steve and Bucky didn’t mind one bit, as it meant that they got to explore each other thoroughly in bed with no interruptions.

Steve was certain now that Bucky’s favourite thing was to be finger-fucked, mostly because Bucky told him every time that he loved it, but also Steve could tell in the way Bucky’s voice caught when he said it, the way his eyes unfocussed and his breath hitched when Steve’s fingers twisted or crooked inside of him, the fact that Steve could make him come from literally that alone, not having to touch him anywhere else.

He had also discovered that his own favourite thing was the way Bucky jerked him off, the way he had immediately found the perfect pressure on the upstroke, squeezing tightly at the head before twisting his wrist and easing the pressure on the down stroke, all the way to the base where he squeezed and twisted again. The move could have Steve’s legs shaking, have him panting and sweating in moments, but it was slow enough for him to last for ages, coming apart under Bucky’s languid attentions until he was a trembling mess and begging for release. Steve could let him do that forever.

They could have stayed in bed forever too, but eventually the storm broke and Boomer had been going crazy cooped up in the house with the humans too wrapped up in each other to pay him too much attention. So the first morning where the wind had died down and the torrential rain had ceased, Steve and Bucky dragged themselves out of the bed that seriously needed clean sheets and dressed warmly to take Boomer out on the beach. The Labrador was in his element.

“I have an idea,” Bucky said as they jogged lightly up the stretch. “Why don’t you call your friend Sam and invite him over?”

Steve raised his eyebrows.

“Are you sure about that? I mean, the last time Sam came over you had a pretty horrific nightmare.”

“Ah, but that was before I started sleeping with a big strong Secret Service agent,” Bucky grinned.

“Shh!” hissed Steve, casting a look around the deserted beach. It made Bucky laugh and he clapped Steve heartily on the shoulder.

“Yeah, because the driftwood and the seashells care so much that we’re together!”

“We’re together?” Steve repeated, his mouth quirking at the corner. Bucky turned and jogged backwards for a while, studying Steve’s face with a smile.

“Well, what would you say we were?”

Steve bit the inside of his cheek to stop his grin from widening.

“’Together’ is nice,” he said. “I like ‘together’.”

“Yeah?” Bucky smiled at him wide and happy for a moment before it turned softer. “You know, I made a decicion?”

“About what?”

“Taking a position on my mother’s staff,” he replied, turning to face forward again and resumed jogging beside Steve. “If I’m on the staff, if I’m in the White House almost all of the time, I won’t need somebody to tail me everywhere because Secret Service are all over that place anyway.”

“And what does that mean?”

“That I can finally take you out to dinner.”

Steve felt like the world had shifted under his feet. Their bubble here in the Hamptons had been amazing, but they both knew that it could never last. Bucky was only here to get back on his feet for a few weeks after being discharged from hospital. The moment they got back to DC, things would be different – there would be no more sleeping in Bucky’s bed, no more movies on the couch, no more runs on the beach, no more privacy. If they wanted to keep that, then they would have to come clean. Steve stopped jogging and reached for Bucky’s hand, pulling him to a stop.

“Is that what you want?” he asked quietly. “To take me to dinner?”

Bucky looked down at their joined hands, fingers lightly entwined. He swallowed visibly, suddenly very serious.

“Steve,” he said softly. “I can’t remember a time when I felt as good as I have this last three weeks. I don’t want it to stop. I don’t just want to take you out to dinner – I want to take you out for breakfast dressed in last night’s clothes, I want to hold your hand as we walk down the street, I want to kiss you in front of a million cameras and let them all know that I’m sleeping next to you at night. I know that I’m screwed up and that I have a million problems, and this is all going so fucking fast that it can’t be healthy but…”

Bucky’s next words were smothered by Steve’s mouth on his, hands on both sides of his neck as Steve kissed him without giving a shit if anyone was around to see it. Bucky’s fists bunched desperately into the thick jersey of Steve’s hoodie as they closed any space that had been between them. Steve’s heart was thumping hard against his ribcage, swollen so much with emotion that he thought it would burst.

“I want that,” he whispered breathlessly against Bucky’s lips, between kisses. “I want all of that, so much.”

Bucky laughed, the sound catching in his throat before he gave Steve one last lingering kiss.

“Good to know that you’re just as stupid as me.”

Steve laughed too and then remembered where they were – out in the open for anyone to see. He dropped his hands and backed up a couple of steps, although he was still smiling.

“Not quite as stupid,” he smirked. “If a paparazzo caught that, we’d be screwed before we even get off the ground.”

Bucky held up both hands in defeat and grinned.

“I’m strictly hands-off for now, Agent Rogers.”

Steve shook his head and started to jog again, unable to contain how happy he felt. Bucky had been absolutely right – this had happened far too fast, but it wasn’t just sex. Steve felt real affection for him, he felt happy, he felt like they had connected on a level that Steve rarely had with people. Steve had been walking around on autopilot since leaving the army, just going through the motions day by day. Bucky had made him feel alive again. Was three weeks too soon to call it love? It probably was, but that was the closest emotion Steve could find to describe it.

They didn’t say anything else as they jogged back to the house, Boomer running along with them and pausing occasionally to dash into the sea and then bark indignantly when his paws got wet. Bucky was wincing slightly when they slowed to a walk and went up the stairs to the back porch, and Steve was once again reminded of Bucky’s ‘problems’ – his feet were still not entirely healed from being broken in Afghanistan. He wondered if they would ever be.

“Call Sam,” Bucky said again as he grabbed a towel to dry off Boomer’s sodden legs. “Tell him to come over tonight. We could do with some fresh company.”

“Sick of me already, Barnes?”

“Never going to happen.” Bucky replied, only half-joking.

~

“Something is different,” Sam said, leaning back in his chair and eying Steve carefully. They had been matchstick poker for an hour, waiting for the pizza to arrive. Bucky had bought extra and was taking a large pepperoni to the two Secret Service agents that had been miserably holed up in the guest house whilst Steve and Bucky had literally riding out the stormy weather in bed.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean something is different,” Wilson repeated, eyes narrowing. “I mean, the last time I was here it was obvious that you were finally starting to like your job and you and Barnes are getting along like a house on fire, but something is different this time and I can’t put my finger on it.”

Steve hid behind his beer.

“Nothing is different,” he replied. Of course, everything was different. The last time Sam had hung out with them, they had still been sleeping in separate beds, before Bucky’s last nightmare where Steve had held him close through the night, before their first definite hint of sexual attraction, before their first kiss. Steve’s entire world had changed in just over a week and it was apparently obvious. Or maybe it was just Sam’s hyper vigilance.

“Nah, something is. Are you guys sleeping together?”

Beer sprayed out of Steve’s nose and he glanced frantically at his friend. Sam’s facial expression changed instantly from joking to surprise and then to disbelief.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

“Shut up!” Steve hissed, wiping his nose and mouth hastily with the back of his hand. Sam started to laugh.

“Fuck me, I was kidding! How the fuck did that happen?”

Steve glanced over his shoulder to check that Bucky wasn’t on his way back yet.

“It just…did,” he said helplessly.

“Oh my god,” Sam chuckled. “You are so fucked if the President finds out.”

“Don’t remind me,” Steve muttered. “Just please don’t say anything, Sam. Please. We’re going to address it when we get back to DC but right now, nobody can know.”

Sam stopped laughing and grew serious.

“Oh,” he said. “So this is actually a thing?”

“Yeah, it’s a thing.”

“My lips are sealed, bro.”

Steve sighed with relief. Not that he ever thought Sam would rat him out – they had been through too much together and Sam had always had Steve’s back.

Just then, Bucky came back in, chuckling to himself. Sam took a sip of beer.

“Oh my god,” Bucky grinned, pulling his seat out and sitting down. “Sometimes I forget that people grew up in places other than New York and they have no idea how amazing our pizza is.”

Steve watched him shake his head with amusement and open the giant pizza box that was sitting on the table, reaching in to take a slice. He looked up, pizza halfway to his mouth and paused, realising there had been a change in the air. His eyes slid from Steve, to Sam, and back again.

“What?”

Steve glanced over at his friend.

“Sam knows,” he said dully.

“I guessed,” Sam corrected immediately.

Bucky looked between them again and shrugged before biting nonchalantly into his slice.

“Cool,” he mumbled around a mouthful. “It’s cool, right Sam?”

“Absolutely,” replied Sam as he reached casually for his own slice of pizza.

“Excellent,” beamed Bucky. “So Sam, are you coming to my birthday party?”

Steve was dumbstruck again, marvelling at Bucky’s unique way of handling situations. He had taken to Sam in the same way he had first taken to Steve – confident in the unspoken 107th pact that you could trust the other soldier to have your back. Bucky’s trust in them both was absolute, and now Steve was sure that he was in love.

~

Everybody’s sobriety was a little blurred around the edges by the time Sam left. Bucky had offered to let him crash at the house, but Sam insisted he take a cab home, which in turn Bucky insisted paying for. Steve closed and locked the front door and set the alarm before radioing in the last status report for the night. He turned to find Bucky standing in the hallway, all easy grace with his hands in the pockets of his jeans and smiling at him. Steve couldn’t help but smile back as he walked towards him.

“So…” he said softly, reaching Bucky and placing his hands gently on Bucky’s forearms, giving them a light squeeze.

“So…” Bucky echoed. Steve adored the way Bucky looked at that moment, blue eyes slightly unfocussed, his centre just a little off balance. Steve stroked his hands all the way down Bucky’s arms, pulling his hands from his jeans pockets in order to hold them in his own. Bucky really had the most beautiful wrists…or maybe that was just the alcohol speaking.

“This is a thing.”

“This is a thing…”

“Are you going to just repeat everything I say?”

“Quite possibly. I think I’m too drunk for coherent thought,” Bucky replied.

“On the contrary, I think you’re possibly at your most eloquent when you’re drunk.”

“Is that so?”

“It is,” Steve grinned, leaning down the extra couple of inches to kiss him. Not for the first time Steve realised how much he loved the way that Bucky kissed.

“Let’s go to bed,” Bucky murmured, pulling away and leading Steve up the stairs by the hand. Boomer followed them uncertainly.

They didn’t undress each other this time. Instead they moved to their respective sides and stripped rather clinically before sliding beneath the covers, Bucky fluffing up the pillow with a closed fist. As Steve shuffled in, he spotted the Labrador still in the doorway, hunkered down as if waiting for permission. Steve suddenly felt horribly guilty for coming some suddenly between the dog and his human. He patted the space between Bucky and himself.

“Come on Boomer.”

The dog was up immediately, tail wagging happily as he bounded onto the bed and tread a circle between them before lying down and burying his wet nose into the crook of Steve’s neck.

“Poor Boomer,” Bucky murmured, reaching out to dig his fingers into the short, coarse hair on the Labrador’s neck. Steve rolled onto his side and placed his arm over the dog, smiling at Bucky across the pillow.

“At least he doesn’t hate me for taking you away from him.”

“Of course not. Boomer is a total sweetheart.”

“He’d do anything for you,” Steve said.

“So would you,” replied Bucky sleepily, his eyelids already starting to close now that he was lying down, his fingers ceasing their light scratch on Boomer’s neck.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I think I probably would.”

But Bucky was already asleep, his mouth slightly open, breathing steady. Steve smiled, reaching out to tenderly brush a lock of dark hair back from Bucky’s forehead. Boomer looked at him with large brown eyes, his tail swish-swishing on top of the covers. Steve gave his silky ears a rub.

“I guess we both love him, huh?”

Boomer whined quietly and nudged Steve’s cheek with his black nose before settling his head on his paws, comfortable between them both. Steve fell asleep to the sound of Bucky’s breathing. Somehow he felt like this was where he was supposed to have been all his life.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was not in the original plan. I had a plot bunny this morning and decided to run with it. Not sure it came out the way I really wanted, but bugger it.

“Aunt Helen, I am not coming to the ballet with you tonight,” Bucky said into the phone that was jammed between his ear and shoulder as he mixed cream and sugar into the cup of coffee that Steve had made for him.

He loved the way that they had fallen into relative domesticity when it was just the two of them. He loved the way that he and Steve moved around each other, how Steve squeezed his shoulders and pressed a kiss into his hair as he walked past on his way to the fridge, how Steve’s fingers brushed up against the inside of his wrists as they sat at the kitchen counter in the morning and decided what to do with their day.

“Yes, you damn well are young man,” Aunt Helen replied sternly. “You’ve been out of hospital for almost a month and hardly a soul has seen you out and about.”

“I thought that was the whole point,” Bucky grumbled, remembering the conversation with his mother over why he was in the Hamptons in the first place – so he wouldn’t slide right back into bad habits.

“No, it was not the whole point! The point was that you would ease yourself back into society instead of jumping in head first, but so far you’ve been to the VA thing, you’ve been to lunch with me, and then some paparazzo caught your Winter Picnic on camera and those are the only public outings you’ve had in four weeks. People are talking.”

“What kind of people?”

“People like Alexander Pierce.”

Bucky stiffened at the mention of the name and across the table, Steve glanced up from his coffee with a frown of concern.

“Fuck Alexander Pierce,” he replied harshly, hid fingernails digging into the palm of his hand.

“He’s the Governor of the city, Bucky,” Aunt Helen replied coldly, “and he’s publically calling you out. He’s saying that you can’t hack it anymore after Afghanistan and that it’s time for America to stop indulging your fuck ups…”

Bucky swore in a long tirade of Russian. The language made all curse words sound even harsher than they were in English, and somehow made him feel better about the lying cocksucker that was Alexander Pierce.

“So does that mean you’re coming to the ballet tonight, then?”

Bucky could picture Aunt Helen’s face, triumphant that she had pushed all the right buttons.

“Count me in,” he replied through gritted teeth. The moment he rang off, Bucky hurled his phone across the room.

“Woah!” Steve yelled, jumping out of his seat immediately and crossing to the other side of the counter. “What’s the matter?”

He wrapped his arms around Bucky’s back and gathered him to his chest. Steve’s broad chest and warmth were immediately soothing and Bucky sighed into the soft fabric of Steve’s t-shirt, his arms finding their way around the narrow waist.

“Governor Pierce is being a fucktard again,” he sighed. “He’s drawing attention to the fact that I’ve not been in public much since I came out of hospital. He’s making me sound weak.”

Steve’s hand went to Bucky’s hair, stroking gently again.

“Do you want me to punch him for you?”

A laugh escaped Bucky’s mouth.

“Yeah that would be amazing,” he said, a smile threatening to appear on his face despite the anger he felt. “Then I won’t have to go to the fucking ballet with Aunt Helen.”

Steve’s fingernails started scraping softly against the skin of Bucky’s scalp and he groaned because it was so good, so calming. It was almost like it was Bucky’s off-switch – scrape your fingernails over his head and he’d dissolve into a puddle. It was impossible for him to feel mad with Steve doing this, impossible for him to do anything at all really except for close his eyes and drool like a dog.

“Oh god,” he groaned. “If you keep doing that, you’re going to have to mop me up off the floor.”

Steve’s chest rose and fell under Bucky’s head as he laughed and stopped the light scritches, allowing Bucky to raise his head and grin lop-sidedly. Steve wasn’t smiling back through – he looked serious and concerned.

“You’re not weak,” he said gently. “You’re doing your best. You’re doing amazing actually, considering what you’ve been through.”

“Well,” Bucky replied with a small smile. “I think you’ve helped a little.”

“I’ve kept you inside,” Steve countered. “If it wasn’t for me, I’m sure you would have been out clubbing and attending luncheons or whatever it is you rich kids do, instead of holing up here with me.”

Bucky was grinning for real this time.

“I’d rather do that any day than attend ‘luncheons’”

Steve’s mouth quirked and he slapped Bucky’s arm lightly.

“You know what I mean,” he mumbled.

Unfortunately, Bucky did. If they hadn’t had that conversation on the plane, if Steve hadn’t been a member of Bucky’s old unit, hadn’t been Captain America, then this would have been a very different four weeks. Bucky would probably have tortured the guy by dragging him to endless parties in Manhattan, showing his face every night in public. Bucky probably would have also given Pierce a lot more ammunition to use against his mother if that had happened though. It had all turned out better this way. With a smile, he wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling him in and giving him a small kiss on the nose.

“Steve,” he said gently. “Whatever I do, somebody will find something to use against me. It goes with the territory of being the President’s son. Pierce is an asshole and he’ll do everything to bring my mother down, especially if involves humiliating me. I’m used to it, and it doesn’t matter.”

“What does he have against you?”

Bucky smiled and shrugged.

“I don’t think it’s personal. He’ll just do anything to push his own agenda forward.”

And maybe that was true once, but now Bucky really wasn’t so sure. Perhaps Pierce was resenting the fact that Bucky had dodged so many bullets and now he was determined to put him down permanently. The thought was quashed as Steve took Bucky’s face between his hands and kissed him slowly, sweetly, lips soft and confident and so wonderful that it made Bucky melt a little inside. When Steve kissed him like this, Bucky felt like he could do anything. His eyes remained closed for a good few seconds after Steve stopped and rested his forehead against Bucky’s.

~

Bucky stepped out of Aunt Helen’s limousine at seven thirty that evening looking perfectly gorgeous in an Armani tuxedo. Steve walked just behind his left shoulder, Agent Ryan in front of them and Agent Gregg to their rear with Helen Barnes’ personal security penning them in on the right. Cameras flashed and Steve was practically blinded but he kept his hand firmly in the centre of Bucky’s back. To anyone else it would look like Steve was just the Secret Service Agent steering the President’s Son through the crowds, but it was Steve’s way of reassuring Bucky that he was there for him.

This morning had been intense. Steve had been worried about Bucky all day, ever since the phone call to his Aunt Helen. He was vaguely aware of the Alexander Pierce issue, that the Governor had it out for President Barnes and was not above using her son as a means to get to her. He had the sneaking suspicion that Bucky had fallen foul of Pierce before, but nobody was offering up information – not Natasha, not Fury, not Bucky.

Captain Barnes bore the publicity with all the easy grace that Steve had seen on their first day together, and again at the VA. He had Helen’s arm linked through his and he smiled charmingly, laughing and answering questions with ease whenever a tape recorder was shoved under his nose. The Secret Service fought their way through the crowds and herded them through the doors of the Metropolitan Opera. Tonight’s performance was La Bayadère, whatever that was about. Steve had no clue and Bucky hadn’t been able to enlighten him either. He was just there to show his face and quell the rumours that he wasn’t coping.

At the bar, Steve watched Bucky order martinis for himself and his aunt, and he stood to the side with the other two agents as they mingled and chatted, mostly with Helen’s friends from the Upper East Side. It was fifteen minutes until curtain-up when Gregg’s voice sounded in his ear and Steve stiffened, immediately making his way to Bucky.

“Pierce is here,” he whispered, his hand on Bucky’s shoulder. He went still under Steve’s touch and his face, which had been bright with laughter, fell and grew hard, his jaw locking. It had barely been a warning, because right then Governor Pierce appeared and made a beeline for them.

Alexander Pierce looked like a dangerous man. He was in his sixties but that didn’t by any means say that he was past his prime. He held himself tall, shoulders still broad and squared, face still possessing a great deal of its handsomeness of past youth. Pierce walked like he was stalking prey.

Aunt Helen noticed him first. She looked up from her martini and gave Bucky a subtle dig in the ribs before leaning over to murmur to Bucky.

“He can’t intimidate you. You’re better than he is and you’ve suffered worse.”

Steve could have kissed Helen Barnes for that, because her words made Bucky stand straighter, drawing himself up to his full height, his face determined. In the first moment that they had met, Steve had caught a glimpse of the man that Bucky normally kept hidden under his cheerful, sweet and playful disposition – a man that could be dangerous, lethal when crossed. This was the man that squared off with Alexander Pierce.

“Mister Barnes,” Pierce greeted him, his hand held out to shake. Bucky took it politely, although he looked as though it would give him great pleasure to rip it from his wrist. “What a surprise to see you here.”

“Mister Pierce,” Bucky replied in the same condescending tone, refusing, just as Pierce had, to use his correct title. “I could say the same thing about you.”

“Indeed? I would say that the ballet was more my thing than yours. No pounding bass lines or sweating bodies here.”

Bucky visibly bristled.

“I’m accompanying my aunt,” he replied as levelly as possible.

“Of course,” Pierce said dismissively. “I must say, you’re looking remarkably well considering your recent…problems. All better now?”

“Much,” Bucky gritted out. Steve took a step closer. He may not have had Boomer’s acute senses but he could easily tell that this situation was causing Bucky a great deal of stress. He was ready to step in at any second.

“Good, good,” Pierce crooned, obviously enjoying himself. “Well,” he said, reaching out to casually straighten Bucky’s tie with one hand and then giving them all a wide smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I hope you enjoy the performance.”

Pierce turned away and began walking, but then turned back after a few steps.

“Oh, and Mr Barnes? I hope your new Secret Service Agent is more trustworthy than your last.”

Steve frowned. Bucky seemed frozen to the spot, watching the retreating figure of Alexander Pierce. Helen squeezed Bucky’s arm.

“That man is a weasel,” she growled. “You did good, honey. Pay him no more mind.”

A minute later they finished their drinks and moved to take their seats in Helen’s private box. Steve’s eyes met Bucky’s as they turned and it made Steve’s blood run cold – he looked at Steve with uncertainty and a little fear, before looking away and ducking his head, following Helen and moving away from him.

~

Bucky was a mess. From the second he had seen Alexander Pierce striding towards him, he had felt the icy tendrils of panic grip him. He had swallowed it down, he had worn his mask of indifference as well as he could, and it would have been alright if it hadn’t been for Pierce’s last comment.

He hoped the new Secret Service Agent was more trustworthy than the last.

Bucky had never had a reason to doubt Steve’s motives, doubt if he was genuine, not until right then, until that second when Pierce had planted the seed in his mind. He was ninety-nine percent sure that Pierce was full of bullshit. Steve was trustworthy. Steve was beautiful and sweet and genuine and…

His mind kept flitting back to Rumlow.

Bucky was bordering on a panic attack.

“I’m going to the bathroom,” he whispered to Aunt Helen fifteen minutes into the performance. Helen reached over as he stood and gripped his arm. She looked concerned, and with good reason. “I just need to splash some water on my face, Aunt Helen. I swear.”

She held tight for a second but then let go, turning to Steve who was standing just behind them as always and hissing:

“You go all the way into the bathroom with him, do you hear?”

Steve nodded, eying Bucky carefully as he dashed past. Ryan and Gregg followed them both into the quiet hallway as Bucky balled his hands into fists at his side, walking as fast as he could to the bathroom. The other two agents waited outside as Steve followed Bucky into the white-tiled room and locked the door behind them. Bucky grabbed the sink and finally let the panic wash over him, gripping the ceramic so tight he could have cracked it and emitting high-pitched, shuddering breaths.

“Bucky, what is it?” Steve asked, the worry plainly visible on his face. Bucky spun around, gulping in enough air to try to answer.

“Swear to me this is real,” he replied, his voice cracking, tears threatening to fill his eyes. Bucky cursed himself for losing control so fast.

“What?”

“Please, Steve. Just promise me that you’re not sleeping with me for any kind of gain. I couldn’t stand it, I couldn’t bear it…” Bucky choked back a sob and ran the back of his hand over his eyes, taking another shuddering breath. “Just swear to me that what we have is real.”

Steve took two steps towards him and caught Bucky’s face in his hands, big blue eyes looking at him earnestly.

“I swear,” he said.

And Bucky believed it, relief flooding through him as he pathetically fell forward onto Steve, his knees weak as he grabbed at the front of his jacket. Steve wrapped his arms around him and held him tightly, supporting Bucky’s weight until he could get a grip on himself, stroking his back soothingly as dry sobs racked through him, leaving Bucky’s body shaking.

“Fucking hell, Buck,” Steve whispered into his hair. “What did Pierce do to you?”

Bucky clung onto Steve for dear life, like he was the only thing keeping Bucky from drowning.

“Not now, Steve,” he mumbled into his shoulder. “I can’t tell you right now.”

“Okay…okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Bucky held on for a few more minutes before he felt like he could stand on his own. His fists unclenched from Steve’s jacket and he took a step back, letting out a final shaky breath.

“Do you think Aunt Helen would let me go home?” He asked with a weak smile.

“I’ll send Ryan to tell her,” Steve replied. “Gregg can get the car.”

“Okay…” Bucky breathed as Steve unlocked the bathroom door and called out to the other Agents. He turned on the cold tap and splashed the water over his heated face. Coming out with Aunt Helen had been a bad idea.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to be longer, but after some deliberation, I thought any more to this chapter would ruin it.

Thankfully, Helen Barnes left the Met with them, acutely aware of just how upset her nephew was. Steve watched as Bucky allowed himself to pulled into her lap once they were safely behind the tinted glass of the limo, his arms wrapped around her waist tightly as she tenderly stroked a perfectly manicured hand over his hair. Bucky’s eyes closed lightly and after a moment, he visibly stopped shaking. He looked like a child, frightened and vulnerable in her arms and Steve realised right then what his true job was.

He was sitting in the back with Gregg whilst Ryan was in the front with Helen’s driver. They were party to this small meltdown from the son of the world’s most powerful woman – if even one of them mentioned a word of it to the wrong ear, it could destroy the whole country. Worse than that, it could destroy Bucky. Steve knew he would die before he’d let that happen.

Steve didn’t realise that he’d been staring until Aunt Helen spoke.

“He used to do this just after his dad died,” she said softly. Steve looked up to find her acute blue gaze on him – Bucky looked more like her than he did his mother. “He was a kid who barely knew how to speak and he just had no idea why everybody was so sad. Didn’t understand what ‘dead’ meant. He spent a lot of time just curled up on my knee like this.”

Steve said nothing, a little unsure about this line of conversation. She was talking directly to him, not to Gregg who was sitting still and stoic beside him. Maybe she’d seen the genuine concern on Steve’s face. After a moment, Helen smiled.

“He’ll be fine. Bounces back like a rubber ball, this one.”

“I’m still in the room, Aunt Helen,” Bucky mumbled, cracking one eye open and giving Steve a weak smile.

“We’re in the car, you dipshit,” she replied fondly.

Helen didn’t insist on coming inside – she just dropped them off at the door and told Steve to take good care of him. Something in her voice threw Steve off a little, almost like she knew. But there was no way that she could.

Bucky practically fell onto the excited Labrador who was waiting for them when they got in, dropping to his knees and hugging him tight as Steve locked up and alarmed the house, radioing in his update before removing his earpiece and placing it on the small Maplewood table by the door.

He waited, patiently standing there until Bucky realised that he was still in the room, a million and one thoughts running through his head.

“Are you okay?” he murmured eventually. Steve heard Bucking inhale deeply.

“Yeah,” he huffed, disentangling himself from Boomer and getting to his feet. Bucky ran his hand slowly through his already messed-up hair as he turned to face Steve, giving him a small smile. “I’ll live.”

“Do you…want to talk about it?” Steve ventured.

“No,” Bucky replied quickly – a little too quickly. He drew a deep breath and stepped up close to Steve, winding his arms around Steve’s neck loosely. “Not today.”

“Okay,” he said quietly, his hands finding Bucky’s waist and holding on firmly, just above the jut of his hipbones. Bucky sighed, his eyes closing as he rested his forehead against Steve’s chin.

“I will,” Bucky murmured. “At some point. Just not…”

“Today,” Steve finished. “I know. It’s okay – you don’t have to tell me ever if you don’t want. I’m not going to push you.”

Bucky huffed out a small laugh, his hair tickling the underside of Steve’s chin as he gently shook his head.

“Jesus Christ, Rogers. Where have you been my whole life?”

Steve smiled and ran his hands gently up Bucky’s sides, applying just the smallest amount of pressure.

“Brooklyn, remember? I was a few miles away the whole time, you just never noticed.”

“I’m noticing now,” Bucky murmured, his mouth against Steve’s jaw. “And I could really use a distraction…”

Steve’s stomach fluttered warmly at the way that Bucky’s lips grazed his skin working their way over his throat. It shouldn’t have felt so good, not with the worry that was still flooded in his system.

“Is that such a good plan?” he managed to ask. “With how you’re feeling about earlier tonight…?”

“It’s the best plan,” Bucky whispered into Steve’s neck, and Steve felt his concern ebbing. His hands moved under Bucky’s tuxedo jacket and slid firmly up his back. “I can’t think of a better way to get over it than to get lost in you.”

“I’ll do anything you want, you know that.” Steve breathed.

Bucky stopped his ministrations and straightened, looking Steve directly in the eyes with a small smile.

“It was really more of a request than an order.”

“In that case,” Steve smiled back, “I would be really happy to be that distraction.”

~

It had taken them forever to make it up the stairs, unable to stop kissing for more than a few seconds and taking full advantage of the break to peel off each other’s clothing.

Bucky’s skin felt like it was on fire, burning with the desire to feel Steve’s body pressed against his. If he could have torn off everything he would have, but Steve was stronger and pressed him up against the banister, hands and mouth moving on him so infuriatingly slowly, forcing him to be slow too. With a soft whine, Bucky succumbed to it, allowing Steve this pace because to be quite honest, he had dictated it every other time they had slept together.

Naked by the time they reached the bedroom, they both knelt on the bed, Bucky’s arms wrapped around Steve’s shoulders, fingers feathering the short tendrils at the base of his hairline while he let Steve’s hands roam. He had the most gorgeous hands – large, long-fingered, smooth palms except for the calluses at specific points that were the tell-tale sign of a man who knew how to handle a gun. The tips of those fingers dug into Bucky’s flesh with the lightest pressure, so gentle, so tender and it was all Bucky could do not to beg for more.

He wasn’t used to being treated like glass, like he was something pure and delicate that needed to be handled with care. Bucky craved roughness, to be thrown carelessly onto a bed and mercilessly fucked into the mattress. It drowned out everything that went on in his head, made him feel something for real instead of having to fake it. It had really been the only thing that made him feel like he was living instead of just existing.

And then there was Steve, who looked at him like Bucky was the best thing to ever happen to him, and Bucky wondered how he ever got so lucky, how this man had made him feel like he was worth saving, worth working hard to be a better person. He wondered how he had fallen so completely in love within four weeks.

Steve’s kiss told Bucky everything he needed to know. If Pierce had planted doubt in his mind earlier, Bucky had no trace of it now as Steve’s arms wrapped around him and bent him gently backwards, forcing Bucky’s knees to buckle under him and lie flat. Steve’s weight on top of him was glorious, heavy and solid and warm as he pressed into Bucky’s body, tongue working into his mouth in long, languid strokes, pressing against Bucky’s own, rough yet soft, and wet and perfect.

His fingernails dug slightly into Steve’s scalp as he pressed his hips down and rolled them back, his thick, heavy, hard cock slipping down between Bucky’s thighs and sliding between his buttocks as Steve’s hips moved forward again. Bucky groaned softly, the sound swallowed by Steve instantly as he continued kissing, taking ownership of Bucky’s mouth completely. He wrapped his legs around Steve’s back and felt the slide of Steve’s cock more firmly against his cheeks, slipping wetly between them and smearing them in pre-come.

If Bucky had thought he was on fire before, it was nothing to the heat he felt now, the slow burn of their rutting, Bucky’s dick trapped between his own body and the weight of Steve’s, touched by nowhere near enough and still Steve was absolutely in control, in no hurry, his pace not shifting at all as Bucky came apart at the seams.

One of his hands slid down Steve’s body, along the well-defined shoulders and muscular back to squeeze tightly at the impossible tiny rump, trying desperately to tug him closer, to get more, to feel more of Steve on every inch of his body. But they were already as close as they could get without being joined and Bucky sobbed dryly against Steve’s lips, frantic from need.

“Please,” he whispered, his body pressing upwards into Steve’s as he tore his mouth away. “I need you inside me Steve, please…”

Despite his slow pace, Steve’s breathing was as hard as Bucky’s his light blue eyes impossibly dark and a light rose tint over his cheeks. He was the sun, too bright yet too beautiful to stop looking at as he stroked his hand back over Bucky’s hair and pressed a single kiss to his throat.

“Yes,’ he whispered in reply. His soft mouth pressed a line of kisses from behind Bucky’s ear, down over his neck to his collarbone and Bucky didn’t even notice that Steve had been searching for the bottle until two fingers slicked with cold gel ran over his entrance and made him suck in a breath from shock and pure want.

The whine that bubbled up from his chest and spilled from his lips as Steve’s fingers breached him would have been embarrassing if it had been in anyone else’s company. It didn’t hurt, not with the amount of times Steve had done this to him over the last few days, but it wasn’t enough. Those two fingers slowly moved inside of him and Steve sucked a mark onto his collarbone and he barely felt a thing, just a teasing pressure that drove him mad. He tried to fuck down on Steve’s hand but the angle was wrong and he couldn’t move. Bucky couldn’t take any more of it.

“Steve, please!” he begged.

“Okay,” Steve murmured in his ear. There was a moment where Steve’s fingers slid out of his body, leaving Bucky empty and mourning the loss of the tease, where all he could hear was Steve’s steady breathing as he fumbled with the bottle of gel and slicked himself up. “It’s okay…I’ve got you.”

Bucky barely had time to register Steve pushing against him before his body opened, Steve sliding into him in one smooth stroke. Bucky’s mouth fell open, his breath catching in his throat as his head slammed back into the pillow, his vision whiting out for a second because he’d gone from nothing to everything in an instant. Steve’s thighs were pressed against his buttocks, Bucky’s ankles crossed over his back as Steve settled inside him, balls-deep and leaned over, kissing him once, very softly on the lips. Bucky’s eyes went wide as Steve slowly drew his hips back, pulling out almost entirely, head of his cock sitting just inside before sliding back, just as achingly slowly. The groan that left Bucky was louder than any noise either of them had made yet because this was torture. He was filled, stretched deliciously by Steve’s girth, but the slow pressure still wasn’t enough. It was an itch that was desperate to be scratched but it just never found the right spot.

Steve was in no hurry, propped up on his elbows over Bucky, sucking delicately on Bucky’s bottom lip as he panted into Steve’s mouth, fingers digging desperately into Steve’s forearms and all the while, that ice-blue gaze fixed on his own. Too much, but not enough.

 _“Steve…”_ Bucky pleaded as Steve let go of his lip and pressed his mouth to the hollow of Bucky’s throat, tongue lapping delicately. Bucky cried out, his back arching and that changed the angle, and THIS…oh this was what Bucky had wanted, Steve’s cock buried deep into him with a hard slap of skin on skin.

And that was where Steve’s resolve cracked, his pace picking up with this new sweeter angle, not necessarily faster but harder. This was better, being filled completely and being shoved further up the bed with every thrust. There was no stopping the noises that came out of Bucky’s mouth now, louder and higher pitched every time Steve fucked into him and STILL Steve’s eyes stayed locked with Bucky’s as they breathed each other’s air, and snatched kisses between gasps.

His entire body trembled with his impending orgasm, toes and fingers tingling with numbness and Bucky had no idea how Steve could make him come without once touching his dick, but it was the most amazing feeling, how Steve could hit that one spot inside him and the heat that had been building up in the pit of his stomach boiled over and raced through his veins, his muscles tensing in his thighs and stomach as his cock pulsed and spilled all over his skin.

Steve gazed at the milky white pool by Bucky’s navel in wonder, his cheeks flushed as Bucky’s body was racked with aftershocks, everything immediately too much, too sensitive as Steve moved inside him once more, twice, and then pulled out, leaving Bucky empty again as he came all over the sheet between Bucky’s thighs with a shaky gasp.

His head sank onto Bucky’s chest and he lay there, back bowed as they both fought for breath, Bucky gently threading his fingers through Steve’s short hair. He was exhausted, shaky, the loss of Steve’s weight pressing into him made him cold. Mustering up all the strength he could, Bucky wrapped his hands around Steve’s forearms again and pulled him up into a kiss, rolling them onto their sides and wrapping his arms around Steve’s neck again.

Steve nuzzled his cheek tenderly, his hand running down the whole length of Bucky’s exposed side. Bucky bit his lip to contain the words that threatened to escape his mouth. He loved him. Completely and absolutely, Steve had seized hold of Bucky’s heart and he was trying so desperately not to tell him, not here, not now. Instead, he held Steve close and closed his eyes, drifting away with Steve’s hands on him and a cooling wet patch between them on the bed.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty much just a PWP chapter. It was supposed to be the second half of the last chapter.

Steve woke up smiling, mostly because of Bucky’s awful singing which had penetrated the veil of sleep and roused him. The bed was empty and the noise was coming from downstairs where rock music was playing and Bucky was attempting to sing along, obviously clattering around the kitchen as he did so. He got up and dressed, picking up all their discarded clothing as he went downstairs and padded into the kitchen to see Bucky at the stove, happily frying up eggs and bacon. Steve leaned against the door frame and shook his head, smiling. Helen had been right – Bucky bounced back like a rubber ball. You wouldn’t have known how much of a bad state he had been in the evening before, looking at him now making breakfast and singing.

“Well, you’re surprisingly chipper this morning,” Steve said, arms folded over his chest. When Bucky turned, the smile he gave was dazzling.

“Yeah, well…I had a good night.”

“Apparently so,” Steve grinned as he pushed away from the doorframe and walked to the counter, pulling out a chair to sit. “Seeing as we’ve been here a month and you’ve never made breakfast before.”

Bucky grinned back and shuffled some eggs and bacon on a plate.

“I’m not allowed to make my guy some breakfast?”

“Oh, I’m your guy now?” Steve teased, picking up a fork and accepting the plate gratefully.

“Damn right you are,” Bucky replied. The thought made Steve glow with happiness and he dug in enthusiastically, Bucky smiling at him as he sorted coffee.

This was just so easy, this breakfast routine they had going, like they had been doing this their whole lives and would do it until the end. Steve didn’t want to think about having to stop.

Bucky had been a mess the night before at the Met, after Alexander Pierce. Even after Bucky’s last nightmare, Steve had never seen him in such a state. There was a whole story there that he desperately wanted to know, that he needed to know, but Bucky wasn’t ready to tell him yet. Steve could live with that. What he couldn’t live with was seeing Bucky in so much pain.

But this morning, it was once again like nothing had happened – Bucky was smiling and playful and flirty, gorgeous in his t-shirt and boxers and his hair messed up from having Steve’s hands in it the night before.

“This is surprisingly good,” he mumbled around a mouthful of bacon and Bucky threw him an offended look, if only in jest.

“What do you mean ‘surprisingly’? You ate my fantastic pasta – you know I can cook, even if I don’t do it often.”

“Well, maybe you should.”

“Maybe I will.”

They grinned at each other over the kitchen counter until they were disturbed by Bucky’s phone ringing. He glanced at the number and rolled his eyes.

“The President is summoning me,” he said, rolling his eyes before answering the call and putting it on speaker. “Hey mom.”

“Hi sweetie,” President Barnes replied gently. “How are you?”

“I’m great,” Bucky answered.

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Aunt Helen said you had a bit of a bad evening…”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Bucky answered hurriedly. “It was Pierce, he was being an ass, it got to me. I’m fine now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am. It’s my birthday tomorrow, I’m not going to let anything put a dampener on that!”

Steve raised his eyebrows at him from over the counter. He’d forgotten that Bucky was turning twenty six the next day – this was going to be their last day alone for a while.

“About that,” The President continued. “I’m coming up in the morning, okay? I have a few days scheduled off, so we could spend a bit of time together if you like.”

“Sure thing, mama,” Bucky replied, giving Steve a smile.

“Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow sweetheart.”

Bucky said goodbye and ended the call.

“I forgot about your birthday,” Steve said meekly. Bucky started to laugh and slid from the stool, moving around the counter.

“That’s okay,” he replied, kissing Steve’s temple softly as he slid an arm around his shoulder. “You’ve only known me for a month, you can’t be expected to remember that yet. I don’t even know when yours is.”

“July 4th,” Steve answered immediately. Bucky’s eyebrows shot up.

“Seriously?” he said with amusement.

“Yes, seriously,” Steve grinned, pushing his empty plate away and turning around to wrap his arms around Bucky’s waist, pulling him between his thighs.

Bucky kissed him slowly, that lingering bottom lip driving Steve crazy as Bucky’s finger’s linked at the back of his neck, a fingertip of one hand sneaking under the collar of Steve’s t-shirt, stroking the skin underneath. A sigh bubbled its way out from Steve’s chest and it made Bucky laugh gently against his lips.

“I could get used to this,” Steve murmured.

“Yeah?” Bucky replied, kissing him again. “Maybe we should make the most of having an empty house.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, running his thumbs softly against Bucky’s hips, over his shirt.

“What are you suggesting?

Bucky hummed softly against his mouth, smiling before pulling away. He walked backwards, one foot carefully behind the other as he stripped his t-shirt off over his head. Steve swallowed, his breath quickening. Bucky dropped the t-shirt to the floor in the doorway of the kitchen and smirked at him.

“Well,” he replied, his voice dropping into that low huskiness that Steve had heard back on the yacht. “I’m still kinda slicked up from last night. I thought you might want to pull me into your lap and find out if I’m still all open.”

Steve might have stopped breathing for a second. This was definitely a totally different Bucky to the one he’d brought home the night before. He was standing in the doorway with his hands down the front of his boxers, bottom lip between his teeth as he smirked at Steve, unashamedly stroking himself under the fabric. Steve’s own cock gave a very enthusiastic twitch and he all but jumped off the stool.

“Fuck yes,” he found himself saying, striding purposefully towards Bucky, ridding himself of his own t-shirt just in time as he reached Bucky and caught his mouth again, his hand gripping his chin tightly as he prised Bucky’s lips open with his tongue and kissed him forcefully.

Steve found himself pulled forwards by the waistband of his underwear, his mouth never breaking with Bucky’s as they moved, until Steve found himself being turned and then pushed back forcefully. He landed on the third step on the staircase, his back bumping hard into the wood as he looked up at Bucky swiftly stripping off his boxers. He was already hard and Steve couldn’t help but groan at the sight, his mouth watering as Bucky grasped himself firmly at the base and pulled upwards slowly, so very slowly, his eyes fluttering closed for a split second. He bit his lip and grinned, knowing that Steve was staring.

“See something you like, Rogers?” he asked gently.

“I do, but he’s standing a little too far away.”

Bucky laughed, light and breathy as his hand reached the head of his cock and he tightened his grip and twisted his wrist, sucking in a breath between his teeth. Heat flared in Steve’s belly – he knew what that move did to him, so he could very easily imagine how Bucky felt right now.

“Well, you still have your pants on,” Bucky countered breathlessly. “How am I supposed to sit on your cock if you’re all covered up?”

Steve instantly lifted his hips, fingers hooking into the waistband and dragging them down and off. Bucky laughed at him again, but rewarded Steve by coming closer, releasing himself and straddling Steve’s hips, settling himself on his knees on the hard wood step.

“My god, you are totally up for this, aren’t you?” Bucky murmured against Steve’s lips as he lowered himself down, hips canting gently in Steve’s lap.

“Well it’s kinda hard to resist when you’re all naked and gorgeous and touching yourself in front of me,” Steve breathed back, sliding his hands firmly down Bucky’s sides. He knew Bucky loved that – he always groaned at the pressure.

“Oh good,” Bucky replied, ghosting his lips over Steve’s as he pressed down with is hips again. Steve’s dick was rock hard, sliding easily between the cleft of Bucky’s ass cheeks. He could still feel the slickness of the residual gel from the night before and he moaned.

“You’re incorrigible.”

“And you’re using big words again, Stevie,” Bucky grinned. “Do you want to fuck me or not?”

“Oh, I definitely want to fuck you.”

Steve saw Bucky’s eyes light up, grin widening.

“Well, well. It sounds like Stevie is finally getting with the program,” he replied softly, reaching back to run his fingers up the length of Steve’s shaft, making Steve’s breath hitch. “Do you want to work me open a little or do you just want me to sit on it and see if I’m slick enough to take you?”

“Do you want to maybe stop taunting me before you get my cock shoved so far into your ass that you black out, whether you’re ready for it or not?”

And it was like Steve had just flipped the switch to maximum. Bucky’s mouth dropped open and he made a small choked sound in the back of his throat, his blue eyes almost black and filled with unbridled joy.

“Now that’s what I was looking for,” he breathed. “Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Rogers has arrived.”

Steve growled and surged forward, crushing his mouth against Bucky’s, and if he thought that they had kissed passionately before then, it was nothing compared to this time. Bucky’s fingers tugged at Steve’s hair, his eyes open and wide as he kissed Steve fast, messy, sucking on his tongue as he lifted his hips up. Steve took his chance, taking himself in hand and sliding his cock down between Bucky’s cleft and drove his hips upwards as he pulled Bucky down with the hand on his hip.

Bucky sucked in a breath. So did Steve, because Bucky had been slick but not quite slick enough and the friction as Steve had shoved into him had burned.

“Shit…” Bucky panted, his forehead bumping painfully into Steve’s as he surged forward and suddenly Steve’s bravado slipped away.

“Oh my god! I’m sorry! Are you okay?”

Bucky started to laugh, his whole body shaking.

“Ow…oh…yeah, shit that hurt.”

“Do you want me to pull out?”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Bucky gasped and Steve, who had started to move, stilled immediately. Bucky breathed again, a couple of long inhalations until he could speak again. “Give me your hand.”

Steve bit his lip as Bucky licked the palm of Steve’s hand wetly, lapping gently, sucking on his fingers until his had was dripping with spit. Steve slicked himself up, running his fingers around the tight ring of muscle where Bucky joined him and experimentally rolled his hips. He slid out a couple of millimetres and back in again, much easier.

“Better?” he murmured and Bucky swallowed, nodding.

“Yeah…just….just do that until I get used to it.”

Steve placed his hands on Bucky’s waist and slid them up, using the light pressured stokes to soothe him as he rolled his hips gently, moving back and forward inside Bucky instead of in and out of him. Bucky hummed against Steve’s cheek and pressed a soft kiss into his skin, fingers loosening the grip they had held in Steve’s hair the whole time. After a few moments, Steve felt him relax and sigh softly.

“Oh yeah, that’s better,” Bucky breathed, shifting his knees on the wooden step and moving in a way that increased the pressure on Steve’s cock, making him gasp.

“You sure?” he managed to say. Bucky sat up and grinned at him, all wickedness and pure lust.

“Absolutely sure. Now fuck me like you mean it.”

Heat flashed through Steve again and he slid forward to the edge of the step, his feet planted firmly on the floor as he snapped his hips up, the flesh of his thighs smacking loudly against Bucky’s backside.

God, but he was beautiful to watch, holding himself up and still, fingers digging into Steve’s shoulders as Steve fucked up into his body. Bucky’s head was thrown back, mouth open and emitting short, gasping moans as Steve wrapped his arms tight around Bucky’s waist.

“Oh fuck, Steve that’s so good,” Bucky groaned.

“Yeah?” he breathed. “You like being fucked hard?”

“Not as much as I love it when you fuck me hard and TELL me about it,” Bucky chuckled.

And then there was no stopping Steve. All the things he’d desperately wanted to say when they’d had sex on the yacht and couldn’t make his mouth work just came spilling out, telling Bucky how hot he was, how tight he was, how much Steve loved fucking him. It drove Bucky wild, had him practically screaming and fucking back down onto Steve’s cock as hard as he could until Steve could only pant in time with his thrusts that were becoming erratic. His hips stuttered, his thighs burning painfully as the white heat inside him coiled and tightened and broke, and this time he couldn’t pull out, emptying himself inside of Bucky’s tightness. Bucky looked at him with a heady mixture of shock and pleasure.

“Fucking Christ, Steve…” he choked out as Steve went rigid and shook from head to toe. Bucky followed about ten seconds after, jerking himself off roughly and coming over his hand with a low groan.

“I’m so sorry…” Steve muttered breathlessly as soon as he had enough wits about him again. To his absolute surprise, Bucky laughed. He wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck and looked at him like Steve was the sun.

“What the fuck for?” Bucky asked happily. “That was fucking amazing.”

Steve stared at him and then he started to laugh too, holding tight onto the beautiful man in his lap as his softening cock slid wetly from him.

“I can’t believe I came inside you…” he groaned, his head hitting Bucky’s bare shoulder as he sagged forward.

“Me neither,” Bucky admitted. “That was so fucking hot.”

“You’re not going to be saying that in a couple of minute’s time.”

“You’re right. It’s actually getting kinda gross already.”

Steve laughed and raised his head, taking Bucky’s face between his hands and kissing him softly.

“Get off me and go get in the shower. We’ve got to go pick up your suit from the tailor today.”

“Yes Captain,” Bucky replied cheekily, his smile so wide that it had to hurt his cheeks.

“Don’t make me spank you.”

“Oh, is that what you’re into, Rogers?” Bucky retorted, sliding slowly from Steve’s lap and beginning to crawl up the stairs.

Steve’s mouth dropped open.

“Oh my god. Get in the fucking shower, you dirty-mouthed, filthy-minded bastard!”

“Only of you join me!”

Steve Rogers had never moved faster in his life.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This week might be slow on updates - it’s my birthday and the husband has taken time off work to spend with me. Which is nice but cuts down my writing time!

They had made the most of their last day alone together before the President arrived. They had gone into Manhattan and picked up the D&G suit that Bucky would be wearing to his birthday party. Steve had marvelled at how it fit Bucky so perfectly, hugging all the right places. The colour was perfect on him too – a fairer skinned, fairer haired man couldn’t have pulled off the pale gray, but it set off Bucky’s best features – Aunt Helen had been right.

Steve and Bucky had spent the rest of the day making out on the couch in between movies and popcorn, a tangle of limbs and hands slowly stroking at exposed skin. It was like one of those lazy Sunday afternoons that people kept going on about, but Steve had never experienced before now, so completely wrapped up in your lover that the world could crumble around you and you wouldn’t care because they were the only thing that mattered.

He could have described it as blissful, being with Bucky this way. Steve just felt so comfortable around him, like he could finally be himself. He loved the way that they could go from having a serious conversation one minute to being flirty and playful the next. How they could be talking about what to eat for dinner, and then forgoing dinner in favour of being pushed up against the wall of the shower and getting each other off under the hot water. And none of it was strange, as though this had been the way they had been forever.

It didn’t even matter that their backgrounds were so different. Steve should not have had anything in common with a guy who had grown up on the Upper East Side, who had never wanted for anything in his life, who had gone to his first choice college and never had to worry about paying for it, whose mother was now the President of the United States. Yet they had some shared life experiences – both of them had lost their fathers young and in the same war, their mothers had both been strong, capable women who had brought them up alone and to the best of their ability. And of course, there was the army, their own war.

Bucky hadn’t had a single nightmare since Steve had started sleeping with him. Steve would hold him close in the night, waking up every so often just to check and Bucky was always sleeping peacefully, sandwiched between Steve’s chest and the golden mass that was Boomer. Steve looked at him when Bucky was like that and he couldn’t contain the waterfall of emotion that he felt. He never wanted Bucky to sleep alone again.

But this was the last night they could do this, at least for a while. The President would be here and they would be under the very observant eye of Natasha Romanoff, who knew them both very well, not to mention all the added security. After his birthday, when they went back to Washington DC, Bucky was going to talk to his mother, tell her about them. Steve had agreed to be hands-off until then, however difficult that was going to be. But Bucky was right – the second they came out about their relationship, Steve would lose his job. He wouldn’t be able to stay close to Bucky, to be there with a reassuring hand on his shoulder in a stressful situation, or to smile at him from the other side of the room. They had to be sensible about this, to wait until the right time, until they could figure out how to keep seeing each other without working together.

Bucky had suggested asking his mother to put Steve back on general White House security and assign Agent Coulson as his personal security. Coulson had been with the President since her days as Governor of NY and Bucky had admitted that if there was one other person he would trust with his life, it would be Phil Coulson. Steve had agreed. And then they could do this properly, go on dates, hold hands in public, stay over at each others’ apartments.

All they had to do was keep their hands to themselves for a couple of days.

~

Bucky woke up to soft kisses being placed on the back of his neck and across his shoulders. He was lying on his front and he buried the grin that spread slowly across his face into the pillow. Steve seemed to love waking Bucky up this way, and honestly, Bucky was never going to complain about Steve’s mouth on his body. Or those fucking amazing hands of his, confidently sliding up over Bucky’s sides and his back, the pressure tugging the muscles beneath Bucky’s skin and never failing to make him groan. God, but he could happily wake up like this for the rest of his life, to the wet kisses over his skin and to Steve moving his Body on top of Bucky’s, his comforting weight on his back, pressing him into the mattress. Steve was already hard, cock heavy against the inside of Bucky’s thigh as Steve rolled gently against him, leaning down to take Bucky’s earlobe between his teeth.

“Fuck,” Bucky moaned into the pillow, lifting his hips and pressing back into Steve as his ear was sucked on softly. Steve huffed gently into his ear and Bucky could feel him smile before he let go of the earlobe and began to work his way down. He settled on his knees, one either side of Bucky’s thighs and kissed down between Bucky’s shoulders, tongue rough and wet as he licked at the impression of the vertebrae under the skin, sucking marks onto Bucky’s body as he worked down. By the time Steve reached the base of his spine, Bucky was panting, fists balled into the pillow under his face.

“Good morning,” Steve murmured cheerfully against his skin as he smoothed his hands down Bucky’s body and over the curve of his behind, digging his fingers into the firm flesh. Bucky gasped into his pillow.

“Mmm…hmm….”

Steve chuckled, the sound vibrating against Bucky’s skin. Steve’s mouth sucked hard on Bucky’s right buttock for a couple of seconds before sinking his teeth in. Bucky yelped.

“Too much?” Steve asked quietly, his fingers softly smoothing the mark that he undoubtedly made.

“Ah….actually,” Bucky breathed, lifting his head out of the pillow, “I kinda like it.”

“Oh,” Steve replied, leaning forward to suck again, this time a little closer to the cleft. “In that case I’ll keep going.”

“One suggestion?”

“Hmm?”

“I think you need to be a little more central.”

Bucky felt Steve smile.

“What? Like this?”

Bucky let out a soft cry, his fists tightening in the pillow even more as Steve placed a hand on each cheek and spread them apart. His breath was hot, tip of his nose touching the sensitive skin as his tongue licked a long, wet stripe up from Bucky’s balls, across the tight entrance and up to the base of his spine.

“Yeah, just like that,” Bucky whined.

Steve’s tongue was amazing on him – rough as it licked over, wet and sloppy and hot, and then firm as it probed inside of him, pushing the wetness in and then sucking hard before starting all over again. Bucky moaned loudly and constantly, unable to lift his hips to a suitable level to take Steve’s tongue deeper. Reaching out, he grabbed Steve’s pillow and tried to stuff it under the space beneath him to hold himself at a better angle. The cool cotton brushed against his hard, heated cock and he moaned even louder, reaching down to grasp it firmly at the base as Steve’s tongue continued to work him open.

His face must have been a mess by then, buried between Bucky’s cheeks and covered with spit as he licked and sucked, nose and chin both buried in the hot space as he worked enthusiastically, not at all bothered by Bucky trying to push back into him.

“Fuck, Steve. That feels so nice,” he gasped.

“Mmmm…” Steve replied, as though he were tasting the most delicious dessert in the world. His hands were wrapped around the tops of Bucky’s thighs, pulling him back so he could get his face further in, delve his tongue deeper, make Bucky wetter, slicker.

“Fucking Christ, Rogers,” Bucky managed breathlessly. “I swear, if you don’t fuck me soon I’m just going to end up coming all over the bed now and it’ll be a totally wasted opportunity.”

Steve groaned against him and slowly pulled his head back.

“Sorry,” he gasped, flattening himself against Bucky’s back again. “I guess I got a little carried away.”

“Well, it’s not like I minded,” Bucky replied as Steve kissed down over his shoulder and up onto his jaw. “But I would much rather have your cock inside me when I come.”

Steve groaned again, messy wet mouth against Bucky’s cheek.

“You are fucking filthy…”

“You’re the one who just had his face buried in my ass.”

“Hmmm,” Steve acknowledged. “Do you want to taste how good you are?”

A loud moan escaped Bucky as Steve licked his way into his mouth, his face still tacky with drying spit as he pressed his tongue firmly against Bucky’s. It was just about the most fantastically depraved thing Bucky had ever experienced and he wondered at the speed that Steve had turned from quiet and bashful into…well…this.

“And you call me filthy?” he murmured as Steve pulled back, smirking at him.

“You’re a bad influence,” Steve replied.

“Excellent. I must be doing something right.”

Steve kissed him again and then suddenly his weight was gone as he sat back and reached for the bottle that had taken up a more permanent residence on the nightstand. Bucky took the opportunity to shift position, grabbing another pillow to stuff under his hips, biting his lip hard in anticipation as Steve squeezed cool gel onto his hands, slicking himself up quickly before pouring some between Bucky’s cheeks. It was cold and made his gasp, but soon enough Steve was smoothing it down with his cock, rubbing it up and down across the tight muscle ring before easing forward. He slid smoothly and easily into Bucky - no burn this time, just the tight pressure of being stretched and filled and god, Bucky loved that feeling, loved the sensation of Steve completely filling him, of stretching out across his back and pushing him down into the mattress.

Bucky’s breathing was shaky, shuddering as he lay there with his face muffling his moans as Steve moved inside him slowly. He put his hands on Bucky’s thighs and moved them out, raising Bucky up on his knees and settling into the space between them, pushing in deeper.

“Oh God…” Bucky gritted out.

“Is that okay?” Steve asked breathlessly in his ear.

“It’s perfect…oh Christ, it’s perfect.”

He had his face in a pillow and his backside raised high, Steve lain out across his back and balls-deep inside of him and Bucky had never been so blissfully overwhelmed. Steve linked their fingers together, crossing their arms over Bucky’s chest as he moved, slowly, steadily, only drawing back a little before sliding effortlessly back in. His mouth pressed small, wet kisses on Bucky’s jaw and Bucky could not and would not suppress the noises spilling from his mouth.

“Oh god, Steve. Deeper…deeper…deep…oh…FUCK!”

He was hot, sweat pooling at his hairline, running down the back of his neck and his dick ached, desperate to be touched as Steve’s rhythm picked up, starting to slam into him harder.

And then somewhere in the pounding of blood in his ears and his own moans, Bucky heard something – something not quite right, like the crunching of gravel.

“Steve, stop!” he panted, lifting his face free of the pillow. Steve stilled and suddenly they could both hear it as plain as day. Bucky was gripped by icy panic. “Fuck, it’s my mother!”

Steve was off him in an instant, pulling out of him so suddenly that it made Bucky whimper involuntarily as they both desperately tumbled out of the bed and made a grab for clothes.

“Shit!” Steve muttered. “I didn’t realise they were going to be this early!”

Bucky grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his waist as Steve picked up his clothes from the floor. Bucky hurried to the window and glanced out.

“Fuck! There are three Secret Service cars out there!” he hissed.

“Turn on the shower – pretend you were just getting in,” Steve replied.

Bucky’s heart hammered hard in his chest. He didn’t know what might have happened if he hadn’t heard those cars pulling up the driveway. His mother would walk in any second.

“Go!’ He said to Steve, shooing his out of the room.

“Okay!” Steve replied, hurrying to the door, yesterday’s clothes covering him strategically. “Bucky?”

“Yeah?” Bucky asked, turning to find Steve still in the doorframe, smiling at him.

“Happy birthday.”

A wide grin spread over Bucky’s face and he stepped forward hurriedly to give Steve one last kiss.

“Go!”

Steve smiled and then disappeared next door, just as the front door opened.

“BUCKY? ARE YOU HERE?”

“Yeah, mom!” He called back down, leaning over the banister and waving. “I have the water running – I was just about to get in the shower.”

The face of his mother and that of Natasha Romanoff looked up at him. He gave them an easy grin, standing there naked but for the towel at his waist and a thankfully ebbing erection.

“Okay, honey,” the President called up to him with a smile. “But don’t be too long. I have a double shot caramel Frap and a Krispy Kreme down here with your name on them!”

“Oh, mama!” Bucky replied. “Anybody would think it was my birthday!”

She laughed at him and turned away, leaving Bucky free to head into the shower. Steve’s door was closed as he passed it on the way back to his room. He wondered if Steve was quite as frustrated as he was about not being able to finish, and Bucky wondered how he would manage to make it through the day with that weighing on his mind.


	16. Chapter 16

Steve had been left no choice but to jerk off in the shower after he and Bucky were interrupted from their, quite frankly amazing, sex session by President Barnes. He would never have made it to lunchtime without wanting to push Bucky up against the nearest wall to finish what they had started otherwise. Steve had honestly thought they’d had plenty of time before the President’s arrival and had wanted to give Bucky a very nice birthday present, but that plan had been ruined and put on the back-burner.

They were walking on the beach now – Bucky and his mother ahead with Steve and Natasha tailing them at a distance, Natasha occupied with her PDA as about six other secret service agents walked on the perimeter. Bucky had his mother’s arm linked through his and they were chatting animatedly to each other as they walked across the sand. Steve couldn’t take his eyes off Bucky’s long legs – he’d never actually followed him at this distance before, never noticed how Bucky had an amazing centre of gravity as he walked, never really seen how great his ass looked from twenty paces behind…

“You’re quiet,” Natasha said, not glancing up from her PDA.

“What?”

She glanced up that time.

“You’re quiet,” she repeated. “I mean, I know that you’ve never been a seriously chatty guy, but this is quiet even for you. You’ve not said a single word for three hours. Not even ‘hi’ to me.”

Steve inhaled deeply and huffed out again, running a hand over his hair.

“I’m sorry. Hi.”

“Too late now, Rogers,” Nat replied with a grin. “Are you worried about tonight?”

“Tonight?”

“Bucky’s party.”

“Oh,” said Steve, slightly confused. “Not really, no.”

“Because it won’t be as bad as you think, you know.” Natasha carried on, looking back down at her PDA as it beeped ominously.

“What do you mean ‘bad’?”

“Well,” Natasha murmured, her stylus a blur as she answered the email. “He’s going to get totally wasted and probably make out with everybody under the age of forty, but he’s not going to get in a fight or anything because we only invited nice people, and nobody is stupid enough to bring drugs within a mile of the President. So you’ll probably have to carry him home and drape him over the toilet, but that’ll be the worst of it, I promise.”

Steve laughed nervously.

“Does he often make out with everyone at his birthday parties?”

Natasha smirked.

“It aint a Barnes party until Bucky has kissed ten separate people, split up one couple because he was making out with both of them, and fucked somebody in a closet,” she replied seriously. Steve was starting to feel ever so slightly apprehensive, and a little annoyed.

“Is that how you got involved with him?” Steve regretted it the moment he said it. Natasha gave him a look that could kill. “I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “That was unbelievably fucking mean and deeply personal. I’m an ass.”

“Yes, you are,” Nat shot back at him.

“I’m sorry.”

They walked on in silence for a few more minutes, Steve mentally kicking himself for his uncharacteristic outburst. Natasha was about the closest thing he had to a friend in the White House security circle. The last thing he wanted in the world was to upset her over his own completely irrational feelings of jealousy.

“It wasn’t like that,” Natasha said quietly after a while, her stylus ceasing it’s movement on her PDA. “Me and Bucky – it wasn’t like that.”

“Oh Nat, you don’t have to explain anything to me…”

“No, it’s fine,” she replied tightly. “I had just come back from a year in Russia. It had been awful – there are things about that year that I’ve never told anybody, that I’ve just buried down so deep that they no longer exist. The Agency allowed me to take the lead of Governor Barnes’ security during her election campaign. Bucky had just finished college – he spoke all these languages beautifully, including Russian, and we had both done political science. We had stuff in common, he was funny, he had an amazing ability to batter down my walls and made me smile. He started realising that I had nightmares sometimes, when I’d show up the next day and be ratty with everyone and jumpy. We kinda started sleeping together when he confronted me about them – he was concerned, I was angry and the next thing you know stuff is getting broken as clothes start flying everywhere.”

Steve looked pointedly at his feet, dragging them slightly in the sand. He hadn’t actually wanted to know any of this.

“I thought you said it had only been physical,” he found himself saying. “Sounds like it was a bit more than that.”

Natasha shook her head and gave him a small smile.

“It might have been if I’d allowed it,” she said. “But I wasn’t really ready to let anyone in just then. I put my foot down, didn’t let myself get emotionally attached. He seemed okay with that, and we remain more than amicable in our relationship.”

“Did the President ever find out?” Steve asked quietly.

“Definitely not,” Natasha replied, shaking her head firmly. “I’m practically considered family these days – I live out of that woman’s pocket, I sleep in the room down the hall. But two years ago, I would have been metaphorically shipped off to the gulag if she’d ever known. And she wasn’t nearly as protective of him back then as she is now.”

Steve bit his lip and glanced up, his eyes settling on Bucky’s back as he walked ahead of them, his arm still linked with his mother’s. He felt a strange pang - not quite jealousy, but almost disappointment to find out that he wasn’t really Bucky’s first. It seemed like he had a bit of a thing for the Secret Service, and if Steve didn’t know for certain that Bucky’s feelings for him were real, if he hadn’t seen it in his eyes and heard it in Bucky’s voice, if he hadn’t have begged Steve that night at the Met to tell him that it was real, then Steve would have been done.

But he loved Bucky and he was damn well sure that if Bucky didn’t quite love him back just yet then he was at least close to it. Steve hadn’t really wanted to hide their relationship, but after hearing Natasha’s story he was pretty sure they were doing the right thing for now. He trusted that Bucky knew what he was doing with regards to talking his mother around. Steve just knew they he couldn’t lose him, and he’d do everything in his power to stay.

~

Bucky was still feeling a little jumpy. He had never come so close to losing the most important thing in his entire life until that morning. If he hadn’t heave heard the cars pull up…well, it didn’t bear thinking about. They had managed to disentangle in time, managed to cover it and hide the fact that they had been right in the middle of seriously mind-blowing sex just a minute earlier. But Bucky was still on edge.

“Are you sure you’re okay, sweetie?” his mother asked as they walked down the beach, Boomer running ahead of them and chasing his favourite tennis ball. Bucky glanced at her and managed a smile.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just….thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” she joked, linking her arm through his. His smile widened.

“Nah, I won’t,” he replied. Winifred Barnes, known fondly as Freddie by the entire country, was almost as tall as her son but that was where the physical similarities ended. His father had been taller than him, but Bucky was his double in every other way, or so he had been told. Most people had mistaken Aunt Helen for his mother before their family had been thrown into the public eye, but after a while everyone could clearly see that he had a lot of Freddie Barnes’ personality traits.

“Anything you want to tell me?”

Bucky looked at her and bit his lip. He wanted to tell her right now, get all of it out in the open about him and Steve, but this was not the right time. Bucky needed Steve to be with him tonight – he couldn’t afford for this conversation to go badly right now.

“It can wait,” he said. “When we get back to DC, there are a few things I need to talk to you about, okay?”

His mother frowned.

“Anything I need to worry about?”

“No, they’re all good things,” Bucky reassured her. “At least, I think they’re all good things. I just need a scheduled time and place to discuss them with you.”

Freddie Barnes ground to a halt and turned to face him, placing a cold hand on either side of Bucky’s face.

“You would tell me if there was anything I needed to be concerned about, wouldn’t you?”

Bucky nodded. He knew that her mind was flooded with all the worst thoughts – if he was still having nightmares, if he was coping outside of the hospital and without medication, if Pierce had affected him more than Bucky had let on.

“You don’t need to worry about anything,” he replied with a smile. “It’s just future stuff.”

“Oh, future stuff!”

“I know,” he said, linking his mother’s arm back through his as they kept walking. “I’m turning into this serious grown up these days!”

“Not too serious, I hope?”

“You know me,” he murmured. “I never could take life too seriously…”

~

Bucky looked incredibly gorgeous in that suit. Steve watched him from the outskirts of the room and was once again struck by his beauty. Not just his physical beauty of course, but the way his eyes lit up when he saw a friend that he’d not been around for a while, or when a couple of his old unit turned up. He hugged everybody, not just a small, half-assed affair, but proper bone-crushing hugs with his arms wrapped fully around them. He looked genuinely amazed and delighted by everyone who showed up, and best of all, he didn’t make out with anybody.

This was also the first time he’d ever seen the President look so casual and relaxed, standing to the side and chatting with Aunt Helen whilst keeping an eye on Bucky. She seemed nice, when she wasn’t being the world’s most powerful woman.

Natasha had ordered in lunch from a nearby deli earlier that day and, to his complete surprise, Steve had been invited to sit with them while they ate. He remembered what Natasha had said earlier that morning about her practically being one of the family these days. Nat had just slid into a chair at the table and helped herself to potato salad and ham without even blinking, PDA in one hand and fork in the other.

Bucky had smiled at him as the President had politely questioned him about growing up in Brooklyn and his time in the army and how he was finding the Secret Service. It was all very amiable and for a few minutes Steve forgot that this wasn’t just a regular family lunch with his new boyfriend’s mother.

It was evident that Bucky was his mother’s world. Steve couldn’t imagine the torment that the woman must have gone through when her son had been kidnapped by the Taliban, what an impossible decision it had to have been to leave him at their mercy for the sake of the rest of the world. Steve didn’t know if he would have had the strength to wait three months for military intelligence to find out where he was being held and then send in an elite rescue squad. Steve probably would have tried storming the place single-handedly to get Bucky back.

Champagne was flowing freely and Steve could only catch the odd glimpse of Bucky amidst the throng of people. He was laughing, listening to jokes and stories, and possibly drinking the champagne slightly too fast. Steve couldn’t focus on anything else but Bucky’s face until Natasha appeared at his side.

“Something is not quite right here,” she murmured.

“What do you mean?” Steve replied with a frown.

“This party is too sedate.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

Natasha looked at him and scowled.

“It’s not normal,” she said before stalking off.

Steve shrugged and shook his head. Natasha had said that it wasn’t a Barnes party unless it turned into a riotous orgy, and it didn’t look like it was going to head that way at all. He turned his head to face the room again and his stomach immediately turned to butterflies as his eyes met Bucky’s. His breath caught in his throat and a grin spread over his face and Bucky smiled at him, and then gave a small incline of his head before turning. Steve strode through the crowd to follow him, catching up as Bucky meandered through the people and out of the private function room, into the quiet corridor. His hand stretched back, fingers lightly brushing against Steve’s for just a second as he headed for one of the bathrooms. Steve felt like a jolt of electricity had just shot through him and he looked about, making sure the corridor was empty before following Bucky inside, closing the door and locking it.

The lighting in the private bathroom was soft and apricot-tinted, everything inside maple and cream and dark plum from the carpet to the sink to the plush armchair in the corner. Only expensive club bathrooms were like this – perfectly private and decked out like a tiny hotel suite.

Bucky was standing in the middle of the sumptuous purple carpet, hands in his pockets and giving Steve that smile that he loved so much slightly blurred with alcohol consumption.

“Hi,” Bucky murmured.

“Hi,” Steve replied.

And then he was across the room, just a few steps, sweeping Bucky up in his arms and kissing him like they hadn’t seen each other for a year. Bucky made the sweetest noise against his mouth, hands trying desperately to find a place on Steve’s body to rest that wasn’t in his hair. They finally found their way to the lapels of Steve’s jacket, gently smoothing them between his thumb and forefinger as he kissed Steve back deeply, his tongue gently pressing against Steve’s. Eventually, Bucky groaned and pulled away.

“God, I’ve been wanting to do that all day,” he breathed. Steve smiled and rubbed Bucky’s forearms firmly.

“Yeah, me too,” he admitted.

“This is definitely harder than I thought it was going to be.”

“Well, we’ve almost made it through the first day,” Steve murmured. His lips were still tingling from Bucky’s kiss. “Only, what? Thirty six more hours to go?”

Bucky laughed softly and kissed him again, hands sliding up his chest to his neck, and then his face.

“Come on,” he mumbled, breaking away again. “If I’m gone more than three minutes, somebody is going to start getting suspicious.”

Steve sighed and stepped away, giving Bucky a quick glance over to make sure that nothing was out of place before unlocking the bathroom door and looking out into the corridor. It was still empty and he ushered Bucky ahead of him and back into the function room. Bucky had barely taken two steps into the crowd before Steve felt an iron grip on his wrist and was dragged back out into the hallway to be roughly shoved up against the wall.

Natasha Romanoff glared at him.

“What the actual fuck, Rogers?” she growled.

“What?” Steve replied, shocked at being so easily manhandled by a woman half his size. He kept forgetting that Natasha was trained by the CIA.

“You know, I have been racking my brain all day to try and figure out what’s wrong with this picture,” Natasha hissed. “And now I wonder why I didn’t figure it out sooner. You’re fucking him, aren’t you?”

“WHAT?” Steve’s stomach dropped like a stone and Natasha’s face showed some small spark of triumph.

“Bucky has been a hot mess for months. You’re around for four weeks and suddenly he’s a recluse and not even going crazy at his own birthday party. Then you disappear with him into the bathroom when there is absolutely no need to do so. You’re forgetting to call in your status reports, you’re asking questions about MY past relationship with him – it all makes perfect fucking sense, Steve.”

His chest felt tight. He should have known better than to try to bullshit Natasha Romanoff. The woman was a human lie-detector and Steve had never been able to tell a convincing lie in his life.

“Nat…”

“It stops,” she cut him off. “I don’t care how cute and charming he is. It stops, right now.”

Steve was suddenly very annoyed.

“Oh, so it’s fine for you to fuck him, but not me?” he hissed. Natasha went very still.

“That was before the ‘incident’,” she replied quietly.

“Are you referring to Rumlow?” Steve asked. “Because people keep bringing that up but always fail to explain to me how it’s at all relevant to any situation I find myself in when it comes to Bucky Barnes. What the hell did that man do to make everybody punish me for his mistakes?”

Natasha took a step back and folded her arms across her chest, her eyes dropping to the floor.

“I can’t tell you that.”

“Why not?” he hissed.

“Because I can’t!” she hissed back. Steve blinked. Natasha sighed. “I’m trying to do you a favour, Rogers. This is not what he needs right now.”

“And you’d know, right? Because you’ve seen him every day since he left the hospital, you’ve talked to him, you’ve held in the night when he woke up screaming from a nightmare, you’ve talked him down when Pierce got him so agitated that he had a full blown panic attack at the Met…”

Steve trailed off. Natasha was looking at him entirely differently now.

“Shit,” she said under her breath. “Steve…you were not supposed to fall in love with the President’s son.”

He bit his lip and ran his hands over his face, his breathing shaky.

“I know,” he whispered. “I’m not even sure how it happened.”

Natasha chewed on the inside of her cheek, her foot tapping on the carpet, her arms still crossed over her chest.

“We’ll talk about this later,” she mumbled. “I need some time to think.”

Natasha pushed past him and back into the function room. Steve took a deep breath, his heart pounding. This was not supposed to happen. Shakily, he took his phone out of his pocket and sent a text.

~

“Bucky!” Aunt Helen called, spotting him as he walked back in the room, waving him over. She had moved away from his mother some time ago and had spent a good hour flirting shamelessly with Jim Morita from Bucky’s old squad. She was alone now though, a martini in hand as he reached her and pulled her into a warm hug.

“Hey Aunt Helen,” he replied.

“Happy Birthday, sweetheart,” she said, rubbing his back with her free hand before pulling away and holding him at arm’s length.

“Thank you!” He grinned at her and accepted a drink from a passing tray before turning to survey the room. He couldn’t see Steve. Bucky could have sworn Steve had been just behind him.

“Oh, honey,” Aunt Helen said quietly, running her hand up his arm. “You’re not very subtle.”

“What?”

Helen made ‘the face’ – the one that basically said ‘don’t treat me like I’m fucking stupid’ and Bucky bit his lip guiltily.

“Sweetie, you can’t pull the wool over my eyes – I’ve known you too long,” she replied. “I could see it in the way that boy looked at you the other night, the way you’ve been searching for his face every five minutes since you got here tonight.”

“Aunt Helen…”

“You’re not subtle,” she repeated. “You might want to work on that since you have to be around your mother for the next couple of days.”

Bucky blinked at her.

“You’re not going to give me hell over this?” he asked.

“What would be the point?” Aunt Helen replied. “All I want is for you to be happy, honey. And he’s a good guy – nothing like the last one. But Steven is going to find himself in a hell-hole on the other side of the country if your mother finds out.”

“I’m going to talk to her,” Bucky said. “As soon as we’re back to DC, we’re going to ask for Steve’s old job back, get me some new security. We’re going to do this properly; I just need a little time.”

“Then I suggest you stop eye-fucking your boyfriend from across the room and drink till you’re sick. Otherwise your mother is going to be suspicious.”

Bucky grinned and hugged her tightly.

“I love you, Aunt Helen.”

“Of course you do,” she replied with amusement. “I’m the only person who ever gives it to you straight. Which is ironic seeing you’re as straight as a paperclip!”

Bucky almost choked on his martini as an involuntary laugh bubbled through him. Helen grinned wickedly at him and moved away as Bucky tried to dab up the martini that has spilled from his lips. Then his phone beeped in his pocket.

Digging it out, he looked at the message and his mirth halted in its tracks.

 ** _Steve:_** Natasha knows.

Bucky looked wildly about the room but Steve was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, he typed a one-handed reply.

_So does Aunt Helen. Don’t worry, neither of them will say anything._

A moment went by before he received a response:

 ** _Steve:_** You sure?

Bucky sighed and knocked back the rest of his drink.

_I promise. Now I apologise – I’m about to get very fucking drunk._

He swiped a fresh glass of something from another passing tray and headed over to a group of old friends. His phone beeped again.

 ** _Steve:_** Enjoy.

Bucky took a deep breath. Out of the frying pan and into the fire


	17. Chapter 17

Steve did have to carry Bucky home that night. Between them, Steve and Natasha managed to get him into a secret service car at around two in the morning, so drunk he could barely stand and he passed out on his side in the back. Steve had to put Bucky over his shoulder to carry him up the stairs once they got back to the Hamptons house and dumped him heavily onto the bed. He started to undo the buttons on Bucky’s suit jacket when Natasha put her hand firmly on his and shook her head.

“Don’t do that,” she said, quietly.

“He’s wearing a suit that costs more than two months of my salary,” Steve protested. Natasha just shook her head again.

“And he can afford to get another one if he ruins it,” she replied.

Steve frowned, but released his hold on the button he’d been about to unfasten. Boomer bounced past them both and onto the bed, curling up near Bucky’s waist on top of the covers. Bucky himself was out for the count, mouth open and slack, lips swollen and reddened from constant biting. Steve reached down and smoothed an errant lock of hair back from Bucky’s forehead, smiling slightly at how beautiful he was, even when passed out and snoring.

Bucky had got drunk because it was what people had expected of him, not what he had really wanted to do. Steve had got the feeling that Bucky would have been quite happy drinking until he was on the edge of being too drunk, and then going home. The President had been escorted home hours earlier by Secret Service, leaving Steve and Natasha in charge of seeing her son home safely. The party had got a little wilder after the hurried text conversation that revealed both Natasha’s knowledge of their relationship and Aunt Helen’s. The latter hadn’t surprised Steve as much as it might have, considering what had happened in the car after the Met incident – she’d already known then, possibly had even known from the first time Steve had met her.

Natasha broke into his train of thought when she placed a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up from the unconscious Bucky.

“Can we talk?” she asked quietly.

“Sure,” Steve replied with a sigh. They needed Natasha on their side, needed her to keep their secret, if only for the next few days.

They left Bucky’s room, leaving the door slightly open and went back down the stairs silently. Steve followed Natasha into the kitchen and closed the door behind them before sliding onto one of the stools at the counter and removing his earpiece. Natasha sat down opposite and folded her arms on the counter.

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me everything.”

Steve did. He started with the conversation with Bucky on the plane that sparked Steve’s change of opinion about him. He told Natasha about the pool, about the VA and when he started realising just how wonderful Bucky actually was. Steve told her about Bucky’s nightmare, about the first time they spent the night together and how he started understanding just how much he had started to care about him by then. Talking about it, Steve could pin-point the exact moment that he knew he was in love with Bucky – it had been the morning that their relationship had propelled forward. It had been sunny, Steve had been driving Bucky back from their coffee run and Bucky’s feet had been on the dash, his head pillowed on the car window and his eyes closed as he quietly sang along to whatever had been on the iPod. It had been the simplest thing – Bucky had slowly opened his eyes and smiled at him. That’s all it had taken. Steve could have crashed the car, so distracted by the warmth the flooded his chest and the breath that caught in his lungs, forcing himself to tear his eyes away to watch the road again. That night, he had gone to grab a bag of potato chips and they had toppled back onto the sofa, Steve landing on Bucky’s chest and their mouths almost touching, and Steve had known for sure that he was a goner.

Natasha listened to it all, her expression blank, giving nothing away until Steve had finished the story and looked at her with apprehension.

“Well, Steve,” she said quietly, reaching up to unpin her hair. “This is a pickle you have yourself in.”

“I know,” he replied, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck. “Like I say, I didn’t intend to fall for him Natasha. It just happened.”

Nat looked at him carefully for a moment before replying.

“But you’re going to tell the President about it by the end of the week?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to risk losing your job over a guy that you’ve known for a month?”

Steve sighed.

“Nat…I have never felt this way about anybody in my whole life. I know it’s stupid and reckless and so damn fast, but I’m in love with him Natasha. I don’t want to sneak around behind anybody’s back, I don’t want to be a sordid little secret. It’s killing me that I can’t just wrap my arms around him in front of everybody, that we can’t go out for dinner together, that I can’t tell my friends that I’ve met the most amazing person in the world who makes me so happy I could burst. I don’t care if it’s been one month or one year, I don’t care if it costs me my job. I just want to be with him.”

Natasha smiled at him as she shook her hair free of the last pin.

“It’s wonderful that you’re a terrible liar,” she said.

“I’m not lying.”

“I know,” Natasha replied. “The truth is written so plainly on your face that I’m almost a little embarrassed at how whipped you are!”

A snort of mirth left Steve involuntarily. He grinned and ran a hand through his hair.

“Yeah, well…”he said with a shrug.

Natasha reached over and squeezed his forearm gently.

“You’re a good guy Steve. I’m not going to give anything away – keeping secrets is one thing I’m really good at, but you need to be 100% sure that you know what you’re getting into. I’m not just talking about Bucky’s plethora of problems and PTSD, I mean all the shit that comes with being famous, paparazzi that’ll hound you when you walk down the street and take pictures of you out for coffee. I’m talking about all the dicks that’ll call you exploitative and an opportunist, all the bigots that will call you all the disgusting names under the sun. Is Bucky worth that?”

Steve gave her one small smile and nodded.

“Yes, he’s worth it.”

~

The pounding in Bucky’s head woke him up. His tongue felt thick, his mouth dry like he’s been sucking on cotton wool and his head felt like somebody had replaced his brain with a cannonball. He was on his front and he was still dressed in his suit from the night before. He tried to move and immediately regretted it, groaning into the pillow as his head threatened to burst wide open.

“Good morning, Soldier,” said a familiar voice from the bottom of the bed.

“Shhh…” he mumbled back. “You’re shouting, Natasha.”

“I’m barely even speaking above a whisper!” Natasha replied loudly and Bucky felt her prod his leg with her foot. “Come on Barnes, roll over and take your hangover cure like a good boy.”

“Well, that sounds vaguely kinky,” he said, unable to hold back a smile, despite the immense pain he was in.

“Only in your dreams,” Natasha responded cheerfully.

He rolled over and found her standing at the bottom of his bed and holding a glass of water, a pack of Advil and some dry crackers which he took from her gratefully.

“Did I ever tell you that you’re an angel?”

Natasha snorted as she climbed onto the bed and lay down next to him as he swallowed his pills and sank back into the pillows, tentatively nibbling at a cracker.

“There are many things you have called me, Bucky Barnes. ‘Angel’ was never one of them.”

Natasha turned her head and smiled at him. Bucky managed to smile back and took another bite of cracker.

“Where’s Steve?”

“Walking Boomer with your mother,” Nat replied. “Which is good, because it gives me the opportunity to ask when the fuck you think you’re doing with that poor sweet boy.”

Bucky groaned loudly, covering his face with his free hand. It was all coming back now.

Natasha knew. Aunt Helen knew. This was the reason he had the hangover from hell.

“You’re not going to tell my mother, are you?”

“What are you, twelve?” Nat said with a raised eyebrow. “No, I’m not going to tell your mother, but it’s more for Steve’s sake than yours. You should know better!”

“I know!” Bucky groaned into his hand. “I tried, Nat. I really tried.”

“Obviously not hard enough. Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time?”

Bucky took his hand away from his face and looked at Natasha with narrowed eyes.

“It’s nothing like that Natasha,” he replied quietly. “This is…very different.” Nat was quiet and Bucky sighed, taking another nibble of his cracker and chewing it thoughtfully. “You know when you go through life and you have good relationships and bad relationships, and great sex and terrible sex, and you do well and you mess up, and you think ‘this is it, this is how life is’? And then somebody comes into your life and turns your whole world upside down. Everything you thought you knew about your life, everything you thought you knew about loving somebody is just thrown out the window, because you’ve never felt this way before. And it’s terrifying, but at the same time it’s the only time of your life where you’re NOT afraid anymore. You finally have something real, something worth fighting for, something worth protecting, worth doing right. Because this one person…you feel that this one person is the only one you were ever meant to be with.”

He breathed deep, staring at the ceiling. Beside him, Natasha propped herself up on her elbow.

“Damn it, Barnes. You seriously are in love with him, aren’t you?”

Bucky turned his head and gave Nat a rueful smile.

“One hundred percent,” he admitted.

“Wow,” Natasha mused. “This is something. James Buchanan Barnes, finally ready to settle down with somebody. No more party orgies?”

“Oh come on, Nat! I was never that bad!” he laughed. His head didn’t hurt quite as much anymore. In fact, nothing hurt quite as much anymore. Bucky had been harbouring these feelings for Steve and hadn’t had anyone to confess them to before now. But he had history with Natasha – they had lain together like this before, they had talked and shared secrets. They were friends and it felt amazing to talk to her about this.

Natasha kissed his temple gently and left him to finish his crackers and the glass of water she’d brought. He stripped off his suit and draped it carefully over the chair in the corner of the room before soaking himself thoroughly under a hot shower, allowing the water to run over his face and into his mouth before spitting it out again, like a kind of measured drowning.

It was only when he’d dried off, put on fresh underwear and slipped back into bed that he realised his entire conversation with Natasha had actually been held in Russian.

Old habits died hard.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters in one day again. Eek!

Nobody actually expected Bucky to get out of bed that day, which meant that Steve kind of had the day off on the orders of President Freddie Barnes. He had gone with the President while she walked Boomer on the beach, walking a few paces behind until she had stopped, turned, and asked Steve to walk with her.

“I hope the party wasn’t too bad for you, Agent Rogers,” she said to him with a smile as he fell into step with her.

“No ma’am,” Steve replied. “It was his birthday – if you can’t let your hair down on your birthday then when can you?”

President Barnes laughed.

“Quite. We haven’t had much of a chance to get to know each other, have we Agent Rogers?”

Steve glanced at her. She was looking at him with a smile and slightly raised eyebrows, a look so reminiscent of Bucky that it almost made Steve stop in his tracks.

“I guess not, ma’am,” he replied.

Steve had met the President once, the week before he had started his job as Bucky’s personal security. It had been brief, as he’d already been interviewed and background checked and lie-detected and wrung out by Nick Fury. Meeting the President was really just Steve’s final test to pass, to see if she thought him pleasant enough. It hadn’t really lasted more than five minutes.

“I feel like you got thrown into the deep end with my son,” President Barnes said, wresting the tennis ball from Boomer’s teeth so that she could throw it again. “I hope he hasn’t been too much of a handful.”

“Actually, ma’am, he’s been a pleasure to work for,” Steve replied truthfully.

“He has?” She sounded surprised and Steve turned to smile at her.

“Yes ma’am. It’s been an eye-opening experience, but your son is a good person ma’am and an absolute credit to you.”

President Barnes laughed again and linked her arm through Steve’s.

“Oh, I like you, Agent Rogers,” she replied. “Flattery will get you far.” Steve grinned and they fell into a comfortable silence for a moment before the President spoke again. “He is doing alright, isn’t he? Since coming out of hospital?”

Steve glanced at her and nodded.

“He’s doing well, ma’am. Just taking it easy, really.”

“Good,” she replied, patting his arm gently. “That’s good.”

~

_Powerful hands held him down. He should have been struggling but for some reason he was paralysed. The floor under him should have been sand, but it felt more like carpet. He kept waking up with marks on his body and no idea how they got there – bruises, teeth marks, cuts._

_But that can’t have been right. He had to know how they got there, right? That boot in his rib was from a Talib, wasn’t it? The strong fingers that grasped his chin so tightly that it made him cry out belonged to a Talib. The face that came close, that breathed harshly in his ear…_

_God, but Bucky would have preferred water boarding._

_Somebody grabbed his hair and pulled. A Talib? Or somebody else?_

_He didn’t know. His brain couldn’t separate one memory from the other. Was his mind making things up, filling the space left by the drugs, or was this real? Was he mixing up his experiences again?_

_He just….couldn’t tell._

_Pinned down, a boot, a fist, a knee in his gut, a face that was too close, breath on his skin that made his flesh crawl and bile rise in his throat, a kiss…_

Bucky woke with a strangled cry, his hands already reaching for Boomer, whose nose was buried in the crook of his neck. He sat up, trying to fight the urge to vomit as he hugged the warm mass of dog, but he lost that battle and had to shove Boomer away in order to get up and run into the bathroom, falling onto his knees by the toilet and emptying the entire contents on his stomach. It left his throat raw and his eyes streaming, chest heaving as he gasped for air.

He’d only had that nightmare a handful of times over the last couple of months, but it always had the same effect on him. A jumble of memories that he didn’t even know were real, not for certain. His brain had been too addled at the time, a blur of alcohol and a drug-induced haze of a time that he barely remembered. He only knew for sure the way it made him feel now – disgusted to the point of vomiting. Bucky wanted to scratch his skin off, he felt so unclean.

He pulled himself up from the cold floor and washed his face, letting the water dry naturally on his skin instead of using a towel. His phone beeped just as he got back into bed, pulling Boomer close again.

_**Steve:** Are you okay?_

Bucky took a deep breath, his hands shaking as he texted back.

_Honestly, no._

Less than five seconds later, he heard Steve’s door open and click shut, then his own door handle turned and Steve crept in, quietly closing it behind him.

“Steve,” Bucky whispered desperately. “You can’t be here…”

Steve took no notice, throwing back the covers and climbing into the bed beside him.

“I don’t care,” Steve whispered back, his face serious. “If you’re not okay, I’m not going to just leave you.”

Bucky swallowed hard, feeling tears prickle at his eyes. He really needed Steve right now, needed to bury his nose into the crook of Steve’s neck and breathe in his scent, needed to feel those arms around him because nothing could touch Bucky when he was enveloped in Steve’s embrace.

Surging forward, Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist, almost tackling him back into the pillows, fists bunching into Steve’s t-shirt.

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Steve murmured into his hair, pulling Bucky close as they lay down. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Bucky let himself cry. Face buried into Steve’s chest, Bucky’s tears soaked the front of the soft gray t-shirt, fabric muffling the sobs that erupted from his chest as Steve just held him until they subsided, pressing soft kisses against Bucky’s forehead and slowly running fingers through his hair.

It took at least twenty minutes to get it out of his system, before he finally stopped shaking, before the salt tears dried up and his breathing slowed. Steve kissed his forehead again and gently scratched his fingernails across Bucky’s scalp, making his eyes flutter closed.

“Steve?” he murmured, feeling exhausted.

“Yeah, Buck?”

“I definitely adore you more than just a little bit.”

Steve huffed a laugh and squeezed Bucky gently.

“I definitely adore you more than just a little bit too,” he replied and Bucky smiled into Steve’s t-shirt as those fingernails continued to scrape over his head, relaxing him a little more.

“I can’t let you stay here,” Bucky whispered regretfully.

“I’ll stay until you fall asleep,” Steve replied, his answer firm. Bucky nodded and snuggled up close, listening to the steady beat of Steve’s heart, matching the rhythm of the fingers in his hair and the soothing rise and fall of his chest. He didn’t even remember falling asleep.

~

It was another thirty six hours before Steve could touch Bucky again.

He had stayed for an hour after Bucky had fallen asleep on him before gently easing away and back to his own bed, leaving Boomer in his place. He’d been worried – Bucky hadn’t had a nightmare in almost two weeks, which was apparently the longest he’d gone without one. Steve felt as though it had been his fault, because he hadn’t been there during the night, hadn’t held him close as they had fallen asleep and Bucky’s demons had come back.

He knew he couldn’t think like that, but still he felt horribly guilty when Bucky had made it down the stairs in the morning, eyes red-rimmed and manner subdued. And the worst thing was that Steve couldn’t kiss him, couldn’t hold him, couldn’t even touch him without giving everything away. It was torture.

The only thing he could do was follow the President and her son around as they went about their business – lunch at a country club with Freddie Barnes’ old friends, the theatre with Helen who winked at Steve and made a point to give his bicep and affectionate squeeze, breakfast with a couple of old political allies.

Natasha was with him though, constantly on her PDA or on the phone. She was the only one who could touch them both without it being strange or over-familiar, and was constantly going back and forth between Steve and Bucky, rubbing a shoulder or squeezing an arm every now and then as she passed, trying to keep them connected. Steve had never appreciated her as much in the whole two years he had known her.

Aunt Helen was also a gem. She made a fuss over Bucky during the theatre, smoothing his hair back from his face and kissing him tenderly on the cheek whenever his mother’s attention was diverted. Helen was obviously giving her support and trying not to let her sister in law see, in case any awkward questions were asked.

It was just after breakfast when Natasha received a phone call and moved away, only to turn on her heel and run back into the room, thrusting the phone under the President’s nose. Five minutes later, President Barnes was packing up to leave.

“I’m really sorry sweetie,” she said to Bucky as Natasha rushed around in the background, gathering up important papers and sliding them into the laptop bag on the kitchen counter. “There has been an incident in Oman and I need to get back to Washington immediately.”

Bucky threw a glance in Steve’s direction before replying.

“That’s okay, mom,” he replied, trying his best to sound slightly disappointed. “It’s important, I’ll survive.”

“Are you sure?” the President asked, accepting the jacket handed to her by Natasha. “I know I promised that we’d spend a few days together…”

“Mother, it’s an international crisis. I’m not a child, I can deal with you going back to work early!”

Steve watched as Bucky gave her his most charming smile and she laughed pulling him into a hug.

“I’ll see you in a few days then?”

“Of course!” he called after her as Natasha ran past, laden with luggage. The Secret Service bundled them into the car, and within moments, all three cars were driving down the gravel driveway, Bucky still waving at the door.

Once they were out of sight, Bucky closed the door and turned. Steve was standing in the hall.

“Finally,” Bucky murmured.

Steve felt is body surge forward, crossing the hallway to the door is seconds to pin Bucky up against it, hands grasping his waist roughly as Bucky’s hands went immediately into Steve’s hair, fingers tightening as he tugged Steve down and their mouths crushed together.

They kissed roughly, all tongues and teeth, sucking and biting, gasping as their hands battled with shirt buttons and belts and their feet kicked off shoes.

“Oh God, Steve,” Bucky moaned hotly. “Get me to a bed right now.”

“It would be my genuine pleasure,” Steve replied, stripping Bucky’s shirt from him and tossing it to the floor before sliding his hands down to Bucky’s thighs, pulling him up and wrapping Bucky’s legs around his waist. Steve made his way down the hall, kissing Bucky as he carried him, but quickly came to the realisation that he would never make it up the stairs like this. He let him down at the bottom step and pulled Bucky up behind him instead before guiding him into the bedroom and pushing Bucky down on the bed.

Steve shimmied off his pants and underwear as Bucky did the same, kicking them to the ground before Steve climbed onto the bed and resumed his attack on Bucky’s mouth.

They had gone three days with the bare minimum of touch when they had been so used to sleeping next to each other every night, used to kissing and caressing and touching almost whenever they liked. Steve was desperate – he wanted his hands all over Bucky’s body, his mouth covering every inch, but at the same time he didn’t want to take his time…he was starved.

Bucky was already rutting against him, hands pulling Steve’s hips down as his own tilted up, hard flesh pressing into each other’s bellies and sliding against each other. Steve sank his teeth possessively into Bucky’s shoulder, making him cry out and pull at Steve’s hair, fingers twisting and yanking hard, his thighs widening and legs wrapping around Steve’s back.

“Christ, Steve,” Bucky breathed. “I need you inside me right now. Right fucking now.”

“Yeah,” Steve gasped in response, hand already reaching out for the bottle of gel on the unit at the side of the bed.

He didn’t put any gel on his fingers – just a very liberal amount on his cock that he then smeared quickly over Bucky’s entrance as he rolled them onto their sides, pressing up against Bucky’s back. He was tight but stretched easily and quickly as Steve pushed into him swiftly, lifting Bucky’s leg up by the thigh and holding it there. Steve mouthed at Bucky’s ear, his neck, his jaw as he pulled out and slammed back into him immediately. Bucky cried out, hand reaching back to grab onto Steve’s buttock, fingers digging in so hard that Steve was sure he would have bruises.

Steve plunged into him, fast and relentless, desperate for the tightness and the warmth and the gorgeous cries spilling unchecked from Bucky’s lips as he practically screamed at Steve to go harder, faster, to take him apart. Steve had never felt a need like it, to lose himself so completely inside another person. But this wasn’t just another person – this was Bucky - his beautiful, strong, brave Bucky who was begging Steve for more when Steve was already giving enough to break him.

He let go of Bucky’s leg and curled his thighs up under Bucky’s backside, wrapping both arms around his waist and pulling him in at a deeper angles. Bucky leaned over, bunching his fist in the pillow under his head whilst pushing back onto Steve’s cock.

“Fuck yeah, Stevie…just like that…” he gasped and then cried out again as Steve slammed back into him with a harsh slap of skin on skin.

Steve could feel the heat in his belly coiling tightly, his thighs and stomach tensing and he curled one hand around Bucky’s own hard and leaking length as he hurtled towards his own release, blood pumping loudly in his ears. He bit his lip as he roughly stroked Bucky to orgasm and he came loudly, spilling hot over Steve’s hand. Steve came a moment later with a choking cry, pulling out and painting the base of Bucky’s spine with pearly white streaks and collapsing heavily against the pillows.

They both sucked in air, breathing fast and heavy in the silent room, until…

“What. The ever-loving fuck. Is going on here?”

Steve’s eyes snapped open.

The President of the United States of America was standing in the doorway.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's going down...I'm yellin 'TIMBER!'

Steve and Bucky dived away from each other, scuttling to opposite sides of the bed and attempting to cover up with the rumpled bed sheets, like teenagers caught with their pants around their ankles and a porn mag, only worse – much, much worse.

“Mom…”

“Don’t,” Freddie Barnes said, cutting Bucky off with a raised hand. Her eyes moved to Steve. “Get out,” she said quietly.

“Mom!”

“OUT!”

Bucky watched miserably as Steve slid from the bed like a scolded dog, picking his pants up off the floor and skulking out behind Bucky’s mother, modesty barely intact. If this had been under any other circumstances it would have been hilarious, but this was beyond mortifying.

They had been so careful. They really had – they had gone three days without touching, except for that one night when Bucky woke up from his nightmare, and even then Steve had made sure to be gone before the morning. Bucky had just been so desperate for him that the moment everyone had left, he had practically dragged Steve into bed. And now it was over – they had been caught by the one person they had really needed to keep in the dark about their relationship for the time being.

Bucky’s bare feet were on the floor and he stared at them as Steve disappeared from his room. He could feel his mother’s eyes burning into him.

“Mom…” he started again, but she cut him off a third time.

“What the hell were you thinking?”

Bucky looked up – his mother looked livid.

“We were going to tell you…”

“Oh, were you?” she cut in, sarcastically. “Well then, that just makes it all okay doesn’t it, James? It’s absolutely all fine that you’ve been screwing your Secret Service agent. Let’s just all go have a beer.”

Bucky closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Mom, it isn’t what you think. Please don’t fire him.”

Freddie Barnes gave a short, harsh laugh and rubbed her forehead. After a moment, she threw up both of her hands.

“Get dressed, and then come downstairs,” she said. “I can’t talk to you when you have semen all over your fucking back.”

~

Natasha was in the hall, a look of pure disbelief on her face as Steve exited Bucky’s bedroom, his face burning with embarrassment as he entered his own room. Nat followed him in and closed the door.

“You idiot,” she hissed at him. “You couldn’t have waited an hour?”

“How were we supposed to know that she’d come back?” Steve replied, not giving a damn that he was completely naked in front of her as he reached into a drawer for underwear. “We thought she was gone!”

“She left her damn cell phone on the counter!” Nat replied, her arms folded defensively over her chest. “I was going to run in and grab it, but she was out of the car before me. And then there were clothes in the hall and up the stairs…and Bucky isn’t exactly fucking quiet…”

Steve groaned.

“Nat, you have to help us.”

“I can’t,” she said. “This is more than my job is worth, Rogers. If she had any idea that I’d known about you two and was keeping it from her, then that’s my career over as well as yours.”

He sighed and reached for clean jeans, pulling them on hurriedly.

“Is it really that bad?”

“Yeah, it’s that bad.”

“Why?” Steve asked. “I fell in love with him – I can’t help that. Why is that so bad that it risks losing your job as well as mine.”

“Because you’ve betrayed her trust,” Natasha replied. “And if she knew that I’d kept your secret, I would be betraying her trust too. After Rumlow, she has zero tolerance with that kind of thing.”

Steve tugged on a shirt and looked at her levelly.

“Rumlow again?”

Natasha looked at the floor.

“Steve…”

“Tell me what he did, Natasha.”

“I can’t…”

“Nat, if I’m being punished for somebody else’s sins, I have the right to know what they are!”

She took a deep breath and slowly raised her eyes to meet his.

“The only people who know the full story are me, Fury, President Barnes and Bucky himself,” Natasha said quietly. Steve said nothing, standing still beside the bed. Natasha bit her lip. “When Bucky came back from Afghanistan, he was a wreck. He was under mild sedation for most of the time in the hospital, doped up on painkillers while the bones in his feet mended. He was miserable, he was scared – it was awful to watch. Rumlow was assigned to him when he got out. Everyone thought he was a good choice – he was solid, dependable, friendly, encouraging. He was just what Bucky needed to drag him out of his shell. Except that when Bucky got out of the hospital, he launched himself straight into society – parties and alcohol, sleeping with wildly inappropriate people…drugs. Before Bucky was admitted back to hospital, he was found in a club bathroom by an attendant with a needle in his arm, half dead from a heroin overdose.”

“Fuck…” Steve breathed in horror. “How did that happen? Was Rumlow even watching him?”

“It was Rumlow that did it,” Natasha replied. Steve’s blood ran cold.

“What?”

Natasha shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

“What we didn’t know until later, was that Rumlow was being paid all along by somebody else. He’d been instructed to take Bucky to parties, to encourage the drinking, the drugs – basically he was told to destroy him.”

Something in Steve’s brain clicked into place – the night of Bucky’s panic attack at the Met, the man, the comment that sparked it off…

“It was Alexander Pierce wasn’t it?”

Natasha nodded.

“We traced the bank records – Rumlow had been in Pierce’s employ from the start. The only true way to bring down the President is by bringing down her son. He was already in a vulnerable state – it didn’t take much for Rumlow to find a loose thread and unravel it.”

Steve felt sick. All this time, he’d been led to believe that Rumlow had made an honest mistake and had been punished severely for it. But now he was discovering that Rumlow had actively tried to kill Bucky…

“Did he do anything else?” Steve asked, haltingly. “I mean, did he ever physically hurt him or…?”

Nat blinked at him, and Steve really hoped that she would understand what he was trying to ask. She did.

“We don’t know,” she murmured. “Bucky couldn’t be certain. He said that he kept waking up in various states of undress, or with bruises and couldn’t remember how he got that way. It’s like whatever drugs he was taking at the time fogged up his memory, confused him. He said he couldn’t remember what was real and what wasn’t, or if he took off his own clothes, or…”

“That’s why you didn’t let me get him undressed the other night, isn’t it?” he said softly. “You didn’t want him waking up without a memory of how it happened – didn’t want it to trigger anything.” Natasha nodded and Steve ran both of his hands over his face. “Why didn’t anybody think to tell me?”

“It was a unanimous decision,” Natasha replied. “Everybody agreed to keep it quiet. Especially Bucky. He was supposed to be the only person who would be able to tell anybody else.”

“He was going to tell me,” Steve said, thinking back to the night after the Met once again. “He said he’d tell me about what Pierce had done to cause his panic attack, but he just…wasn’t ready yet.”

He crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. Now he understood everything – why Bucky had been so adamant to keep their relationship secret until the right time, why he had been so nervous around Pierce, why he had questioned Steve’s motives.

If he’d just known, if they had just thought to give him this information to begin with, then Steve could have….

What?

Not got involved? Would he have done that? Would knowing all of this beforehand changed his entire opinion on Bucky from the start? Would their relationship even have developed at all?

It made Steve’s heart hurt to think of it. He couldn’t imagine his life without Bucky in it. Of course he would have stayed away from him, would have pitied him and never have known how happy he could be, how complete he felt when Bucky was with him. Steve would rather have died in that moment than go for the rest of his life and not know Bucky the way he did, to not love him.

“What happens now?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper. Natasha sighed.

“Now, everybody gets dragged back to DC within the next hour. Bucky gets put under house-arrest, probably under the watchful eye of Phil Coulson and you get suspended until you can be brought before a disciplinary hearing.”

“And what about me and Bucky?”

Natasha bit her lip again.

“Well, that depends.”

“On what?”

“On how good Bucky is at talking her around.”

Just then, they heard raised voices from downstairs – Bucky and his mother yelling over the top of one another, and then the front door slammed. Steve and Natasha looked at each other in silence until they heard a car engine start. It wasn’t one of the Secret Service cars – it was the sound Steve imagined that only Bucky’s Aston Martin Vanquish sitting in the garage outside would make. Natasha’s eyes went wide, coming to the same conclusion.

“Bucky isn’t supposed to drive,” she said. “His feet…”

Within seconds, they were both running for the door.

~

Bucky felt numb. His mother had turned and walked out of the bedroom, heading downstairs and leaving him to clean up. His back was still sticky with Steve’s come and he felt sore and empty from their abrupt ending.

He dragged on some clothes, limbs feeling like lead and slowly went down the stairs, his feet falling heavily on each wooden stair. Freddie Barnes was sitting on the edge of the couch, head in her hands and breathing like she was trying to stave off a panic attack.

“It wasn’t supposed to be like this, mama,” Bucky said weakly, hands shoved dejectedly into his pockets. “You weren’t supposed to find out this way. We were going to come clean once we were all back in DC – it was one of those future plans that I was wanting to talk to you about. It was all going to be done properly. You weren’t supposed to walk in on us…”

“Naked with his dick inside you?” she finished coldly. “Apart from the fact that I will never get that image out of my head as long as I live, I really thought you would have learned a lesson after Brock Rumlow.”

“Mom, Steve is nothing like Brock Rumlow,” Bucky replied quietly.

“Are you absolutely sure about that?”

Bucky looked at her and set his jaw, squaring his shoulders.

“I’m in love with him,” he said. “Steve Rogers is a good person, possibly one of the best I’ve ever met. He is genuine and sweet and non-judgemental and patient. He understands me, understands my background, my experiences and he’s not afraid of it, and neither is he out to exploit it. I’m happy for the first time in a year…”

“And you’ve latched on to him just like you latched onto Rumlow!” his mother interrupted. “Can’t you see that? You’ve just swapped one for the other!”

“HE’S NOTHING LIKE RUMLOW!” Bucky yelled back. He looked around the room for Boomer but the dog was nowhere to be found, right when Bucky needed him most. If he couldn’t have Steve, the very least he needed was his dog before he freaked the fuck out.

His mother looked at him sternly.

“Even if he isn’t, James…he has to go.”

“Why?” Bucky replied, on the brink of tears and digging the fingernails of both hands into his palms in an attempt to keep himself grounded.

“I hired a man who was supposed to be dependable and professional. Natasha personally vouched for him, said that he would be a grounding influence, that he wouldn’t put up with any of your bullshit. I put my trust in him and he let me down. How the hell is he supposed to do his job properly when he’s too busy thinking about ripping your clothes off the second you get behind closed doors?”

“Mom, we were going to ask for his old job back on general security!” Bucky said desperately. “We want to be together, we both knew we couldn’t carry on like this! I was going to tell you…”

“So why didn’t you just tell me? We could have talked about this days ago!”

“Why? So we could have had this conversation on my birthday instead?”

Both of their voices were beginning to rise in level and Bucky was seriously fighting back tears, fighting the urge to run.

“You know damn well that I would not be this upset if you’d just come to me with it, Bucky,” she replied. “There is a Middle Eastern crisis going right now, and I’ve had to leave my Vice President to deal with it because I have to deal with this instead. You are suffering from post traumatic stress disorder on two separate levels – you are vulnerable and emotionally compromised and you’re still just desperate to see the good in everybody, even if that destroys you. I cannot forgive Steve Rogers for taking advantage of you in this state.”

“He didn’t KNOW, mom!” Bucky yelled. “It was your decision not to tell him about Rumlow – he can’t be blamed for that.”

“He can still be blamed for fucking my son six ways from Sunday when he was supposed to keep his god-damned dick to himself!”

Bucky went still. He was sure that his palms were bleeding from where his fingernails were digging in so sharply. He started to back up.

“I can’t do this anymore,” he whispered, half to himself.

“Bucky…”

“I can’t…” his voice broke and he turned on his heel and fled, grabbing a set of car keys from the dish in the hallway. Bucky didn’t even think about what he was doing as he ran from the house, unlocking his Aston Martin, jumping in and turning the key in the ignition, screeching off and down the gravel driveway. He just knew that he had to get away.

~

Steve hurtled down the stairs after Natasha to find the President in tears, standing in the middle of the living room and alone.

“Where is he?” Steve asked, panicked. “Did he take a car?”

President Barnes nodded, unable to speak, or at least unable to speak to Steve. He grasped Natasha by the elbow and pulled her to the door.

“Come on.”

“You want to go after him?” Natasha asked. “We don’t even know where he’s gone!”

Steve flung open the door of a waiting Secret Service car and slid into the passenger side. Natasha would have to drive – he didn’t think he could concentrate with being so frantically worried.

“I’m willing to bet my life that he’s heading for his aunt’s house,” he replied as Natasha got in and started the engine. They screeched away.

“I guess that makes sense,” Nat said. “They’ve always been really close.”

“She knows about us and she’s supportive,” Steve added. “If there is anybody he can turn to right now, it’ll be Helen.”

Natasha turned sharply at the end of the driveway, the car skidding as she didn’t even bother with the breaks, and then she floored the accelerator. How she expected the black Mercedes to catch up with Bucky’s supercar, Steve would never know, but he still hung on for dear life as the car reached one hundred and ten miles an hour.

They had to catch up with him, had to get him to pull over. Steve wasn’t even thinking of himself right now, or his relationship with Bucky, or how everything was in tatters – he only cared about finding him and making sure he was safe.

Bucky’s feet had been beaten and broken with sticks over three months in Afghanistan and they would never completely heal. Steve knew how fast they started to hurt, limiting Bucky to a slow, short distance jog in the mornings, leaving him unable to stand for long periods of time. It may not ever be safe for him to drive again, but there he was taking off in one of the fastest cars on the planet with his broken feet at risk of cramping up, of shooting pains causing him to lose control and crash. Steve only hoped they would catch up to him in time.

~

Bucky was halfway down the road before he realised that this had been a bad idea. He was crying so hard that he could barely see, his chest so tight that it caused him physical pain.

This whole thing had been a disaster. He didn’t even know how it had come to this, just that he was about to lose the most important thing in his life, the only thing keeping him grounded, keeping him sane. In four weeks, Steve had changed his life and now it was all crumbling because Bucky couldn’t wait one fucking hour until his mother was safely on a plane back to Washington.

He choked back a sob and pulled his phone from his jeans pocket and plugged it into the jack one-handed as he hurtled down the road and dialled a number.

It rang four times before it picked up.

“Hello, sweetie!”

“Mom knows,” Bucky burst out the second he heard his aunt’s voice. “She was on her way back to DC, she came back to get her cellphone and she caught us>”

Aunt Helen was quiet for a second.

“Caught you, as in gently caressing each other’s face, or caught you as in fucking each other’s brains out?”

“The second one.”

“Fuck,” Aunt Helen muttered. “Where are you, honey?”

“I’m driving to your place.”

“No, you’re not,” she replied. “Not in your condition – you sound terrible. Pull over to the side of the road, I’ll send a car for you.”

“I’m fine, Aunt Helen – I can make it,” he lied.

“No,” Helen said firmly. “Pull over and wait for us. Take the time to breathe and get your head together.”

Bucky drew a shaky breath.

“Okay.”

“And honey? We’ll talk your mother around, I promise. She loves you and she doesn’t want to destroy your happiness, no matter how much it might feel like that.”

Bucky thanked her and reached over to end the call, just as his eyes caught a blur of an animal darting across the road. He swerved to avoid it and tried to break gently but his foot went into spasm and he stepped down too hard. The swerve went into a full spin and the last thing he saw was a wall looming before him before the world went black.

~

It didn’t take too long with Natasha to catch up with Bucky’s Aston Martin, having driven at breakneck speed down the road.

“There he is!” Steve practically yelled, his heart leaping for joy as they spotted the tail lights of the electric blue Vanquish. That joy swiftly turned to horror as he watched the car ahead swerve to avoid…something…and go into a spin, crashing into the stone wall that ran along the side of the road. Steve screamed as Natasha slammed on the breaks and pulled up next to the Aston.

He felt like he was moving in slow motion, unfastening his seat belt and throwing open the door of the car, running across the short expanse of road to battle with Bucky’s car door. The front of the car was completely smashed in, the windscreen badly damaged. Steve fought with the airbag as he tried to get to Bucky who was unconscious in the driver’s seat.

“Bucky?” he shouted. “BUCKY?”

Bucky groaned softly, his brow furrowing and Steve breathed a sigh of relief, lifting his head to yell for Natasha to call an ambulance. He gently stroked Bucky’s hair back from his face and looked him over – it looked as though Bucky had thrown his arm over his face before impact, as his arm had been pillowed on the air bag and Bucky’s nose didn’t look broken. He was okay. A little battered, but he was going to be okay.

Bucky’s eyes fluttered open slowly.

“Steve….?”

“Yeah, Bucky,” he replied. “It’s me, I’m here.”

The corners of Bucky’s mouth twitched upwards.

“Steve,” he repeated with more conviction.

“It’s alright, sweetheart,” Steve replied, leaning forward to kiss his forehead gently, still smoothing Bucky’s hair back from his face as Natasha stood behind him, on the phone to everybody that mattered. “I’m here with you. I’m not going anywhere, I swear.”

Bucky nodded once and his eyes rolled upwards as he passed out again.

“I’m with you ‘till the end of the line, Bucky.”


	20. Chapter 20

Steve held Bucky’s hand through the whole ambulance ride to the hospital, forcing the EMTs to work around him. They made him stay outside in the Emergency Room though, despite Steve insisting that he was Bucky’s boyfriend, which was not a complete lie. Ten minutes later, the President walked through the doors, surrounded by six Secret Service and tailed by Natasha who stayed outside with him, what with not being family either. She held his hand tightly and Steve was never so glad to have a friend with him.

He kept running the crash over and over in his head, wondering if there was anything they could have done to prevent it, if Natasha could have driven a little faster, or…something. Steve wondered how extensive Bucky’s injuries were – just because he had been responsive and had no visible wounds didn’t mean that there was no internal damage or broken bones. The more he thought about it, the worse he felt.

Suddenly, as he was staring at the ground, a pair of sharp-heeled Louboutins appeared that could only belong to one woman. Aunt Helen was standing in front of him, impeccably dressed as usual, as though she were off to lunch with her rich friends and not visiting her nephew in hospital. She held her arms out to him.

“Come here, honey,” she said softly.

Steve felt overwhelmed and almost childlike as he stood up and she enveloped him in a hug – it was just like one of Bucky’s.

“I don’t know how he is,” Steve mumbled into her Versace-clad shoulder. “They won’t tell us anything because I’m not family…”

Steve let out a dry sob and Helen made a soothing noise, rubbing his back gently.

“Now don’t you worry,” she said. “He’ll be fine. I keep telling you – he’s a rubber ball. He’s been through far worse than a car accident and he’s still come out fighting.”

“I know,” Steve replied quietly. He really did know, and not just about Afghanistan this time.

“I’ll try to get you in to see him as soon as I can, okay honey?”

Steve managed a weak smile as Helen let him go and squeezed both of his hands gently before heading off through the doors that Steve was barred from entering, her heels clicking loudly on the ground and echoing in the corridor. He sat back down next to Natasha and sighed as she took his hand again and rested her head on his shoulder. They waited together.

~

Bucky kept floating in and out of consciousness. At first, it hurt to breathe so much, the pain in his side was monumental. He saw Steve’s face once, his mother’s, Aunt Helen’s…plenty of faces he didn’t recognise and that scared him. Bucky was on morphine. He knew he was on morphine because of how it felt – injected into his arm, he could feel it in his veins, travelling up towards his heart and then down through his limbs and then the pain started to dull, leaving Bucky immediately drowsy.

He must have come out of the haze ten times and fallen back in within seconds until he finally had the strength to stay awake for a little longer. It was like coming up from underwater – all the sounds muffled and blurred, and then suddenly they were sharp and loud and they hurt his head.

The voices that roused him were his mother’s and Aunt Helen’s. It took him a moment to tune in, still dazed and his brain still foggy. He hated this feeling so fucking much.

“Oh for Christ’s sake, Freddie!” Helen was saying on Bucky’s left. “You are absolutely over reacting to this!”

“Oh really?” his mother replied. “Was it you who walked in on them?”

“So they were having sex! It’s an entirely natural thing for people in love to do.”

“You think Rogers loves him?”

“Honey, that kid is sitting in the corridor looking like hammered hell right now. He ran out of the house and broke the speed limit trying to find Bucky before he did himself a damage and he held his hand all the way here. You just have to look at his goddamn face to see that he’s crazy about our boy.”

Bucky held his breath, which was a totally stupid thing to do because it caused the pain to start again – left hand side, sixth, seventh and eighth ribs. He bit his tongue and tried not to let them know he was awake and listening in.

“They’ve known each other four weeks Helen,” his mother replied, her voice closer now as she sat down on Bucky’s right side. He could hear the chair squeak as she leaned back. “He’s been through too much. What if he can’t cope with this? What if I let this slide, let them be together and then Bucky finds out that it’s the worst mistake of his life?”

“Then at least it was his mistake,” Aunt Helen said gently. “If you stop them from at least attempting some kind of relationship with each other, then the blame is always going to be on you. They’re not children, Freddie – they can handle it.”

“But what if he gets hurt?”

“He’s hurt now!” Helen exclaimed. “He’s survived war, and torture, and God only knows what else. He’s strong, Freddie – he can survive a bad break up. They’re in love with each other for crying out loud. If it doesn’t work out, then at least they got the chance to find that out for themselves, and if it does work out then you’ll have the happiest boy alive on this planet.”

Bucky heard his mother sigh. The machine supplying his morphine whirred and he felt the liquid drug push into his vein again. He wanted to rip the damn thing out of his arm – he’d put up with all the physical pain in the world just so long as he didn’t ever have to experience the head fog. His brain fuzzed over and he knew that he groaned aloud. As he slipped under again, he heard his mother call his name, but was under the black blanket of sleep before he could reply.

~

Steve didn’t know how many hours he’d been sitting there on the uncomfortable plastic chairs, head in his hands and desperate for any news of Bucky. Natasha had disappeared a couple of hours ago, unable to ignore her phone and PDA anymore and she had left him alone in order to deal with the workings of the White House.

He’d called Sam and done his best not to cry down the phone to his friend as he told him the tale. Sam had offered to come and sit with him at the hospital, but Steve declined – it had been more than enough just to talk to him, and he didn’t want to leave Sam on his own should Steve be allowed to see Bucky.

It was Helen that came for him – Steve heard her Louboutins clicking loudly on the floor before her head stuck out of the door and she beckoned him to follow.

“Freddie just had to step out for a conversation with the Vice Asshole,” she said quietly, leading him down the hall. “And I’m going to get a cup of coffee. You have about ten minutes honey – make them count.”

Helen stopped by the open door of a private room and squeezed Steve’s arm before turning and walking the other way. He walked in, cautiously.

Bucky’s eyes were closed, and he looked pale and grey against the stark white of the pillowcase under his dark hair, the sheet pulled up under his arms. A purple bruise was staring to form on his right cheek and his left arm was in a cast from his hand to his elbow.

“Oh God, Bucky…” Steve murmured as he slid into the chair on the right side of the bed and took hold of Bucky’s uninjured hand, raising it to his lips and giving it a gentle kiss. He bowed his head, feeling tears prickling at his eyes as he stroked his thumb softly over the back of Bucky’s hand.

“Are you crying over me?” Bucky said quietly, his voice slightly cracked. Steve looked up sharply to find Bucky looking at him blurrily, the corners of his mouth pulled up just a fraction. “You big baby…”

Steve let out a noise that was somewhere between a sob and a laugh, his vision impaired by tears that were threatening even harder to fall.

“Yeah well,” he replied. “You kinda scared me for a second there.”

“I kinda scared myself.”

Steve sniffed and smiled, reaching out to brush Bucky’s hair back.

“Well, try not to do it again, okay? I don’t know if my heart can take it.”

Bucky’s smiled widened, but his eyes fluttered closed and stayed that way for a few seconds. When he reopened them, his smile turned a little more playful.

“Hey Stevie?”

“Yeah Buck?”

“Are there any hot nurses? Because I think I may need a sponge bath.” Bucky leaned forward minutely and whispered to him conspiratorially, “I didn’t manage to get a shower after we had sex this morning and I’m still covered in come.”

Steve burst out laughing and this time tears really did fall, rolling down his cheeks. He kissed Bucky’s hand again and held it tightly.

“Oh my god,” he chuckled. “You’re the worst!”

“You love it,” Bucky murmured. The machine next to him whirred and Bucky made a face. “No, not again…”

“Shh, it’s just morphine,” Steve replied quietly, leaning forward again to stroke back Bucky’s hair. “You just sleep. I’m right here.”

He watched as Bucky’s eyes slowly fall shut again as the morphine flooded his system, chest rising and falling gently. Steve stood up and leaned forward, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“I love you,” he said quietly, touching his cheek to the soft dark hair.

“You know, by rights I should get Secret Service to haul your ass out of here.”

For the second time that day, Steve looked up to find President Barnes standing in the doorway. He straightened hastily and wiped his face, but kept his gentle grasp on Bucky’s right hand.

“You do what you have to do, ma’am,” he replied.

She studied him from across the room, her expression blank and her arms crossed over her chest. After a moment she let them drop and walked forward, standing next to him at Bucky’s bedside.

“It wouldn’t do any good if I did,” she murmured. Steve glanced at her, but she didn’t raise her eyes from Bucky’s face. “He has three cracked ribs and a fractured radius on his left side -nothing too terrible. Apart from keeping him doped up, there isn’t much they can do for him apart from prescribe some bed rest, so they’re discharging him in the morning and I’m taking him back to DC. He’ll be glad to get off the morphine, even if he suffers because of it.”

Steve nodded, his mouth dry. He could only imagine how awful it must be for Bucky every time that machine injected more of the potent painkiller into his arm. How much did it feel like the heroin that had been forced into his veins a few months earlier by Brock Rumlow? Steve hoped that the man was on the other side of the earth, because if he ever saw Rumlow’s face he would beat the life out of him.

“I apologise for my outburst this morning,” President Barnes said, breaking Steve’s train of thought.

“There’s no need to apologise, ma’am…”

“Yes there is,” she interjected. “I was harsh, more to Bucky than to you, but I still apologise for it. I thought I had another one out to exploit my son at his most vulnerable, but I’ve heard and seen enough this afternoon to be persuaded otherwise.”

Steve looked at her again, hardly daring to breathe.

“Ma’am?”

President Barnes finally tore her eyes away from her son’s face and looked at Steve. It wasn’t a look full of warmth or forgiveness, but it wasn’t the look of complete betrayal he had seen this morning.

“This isn’t the time or place for this discussion, Agent Rogers,” she said finally. “We’re going back tomorrow, so I’ll have somebody drive you back to the Hamptons and you can collect your things. I’ll ask Natasha to schedule an appointment in the next couple of days where we can talk properly.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve replied quietly, recognising his cue to leave. He gave Bucky one last kiss on the forehead and let his hand go, fighting tears back again as he left the room.

Bucky was going to be okay. Whatever happened from here on out, Bucky was going to be okay.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is beginning to wind down now. Just so you’re prepared.

Steve felt very peculiar being back in his apartment. It was too empty, too small, like his real home had been the Barnes’ house in the Hamptons with Bucky and Boomer and the giant bed they had slept in that was neither too soft nor too firm. He hated waking up alone, hated watching movies by himself, hated that Bucky wasn’t there to steal a fry from his plate when Steve’s attention was focussed elsewhere. He tried to go for a run, but that just made him think about Bucky too, and the morning jogs they had taken on the beach.

He was only on his own for a day, but it was the longest and loneliest day of his life. He was pining and it was pathetic, made worse by the fact that Bucky wasn’t answering his texts and the more messages Steve sent, the more desperate he seemed.

Natasha finally called him with an appointment time.

Steve dressed as smartly as he could in his best crisp suit and tie, determined to make the best impression on the President from the second he walked through the door. The last time he had done this was two years ago, where he had walked through the door and had to be checked through security and issued a visitor’s pass. All his credentials had been suspended for now.

Natasha met him after the checks and escorted him upstairs, right to the door of the Oval Office before pulling him into a brief hug.

“Just be honest with her,” she said. “Lay all your cards on the table and she can take it or leave it. I hope it goes your way.”

She gave him a swift kiss on the cheek before spinning him around and rapping loudly on the Office door.

Steve took a deep breath as he was bid to enter, straightening his tie nervously. President Barnes wasn’t sitting at her desk – she was on one of the couches in front of it, a pot of coffee with two cups and a plate of biscotti on the walnut table.

“Glad you could make it, Steven,” she said conversationally. Steve was thrown off slightly – he had expected this to be a very formal meeting. “Would you care for a cup of coffee?”

“Yes ma’am,” he said, finding his voice. “Thank you.”

He sat on the couch opposite and watched her pour coffee. It was surreal. She didn’t speak again until Steve had added cream and sugar, and picked his cup up for want of something to occupy his hands.

“I’ve been running this scenario over and over in my head for the last couple of days,” she said, “and I still can’t come up with a good way to start.”

Steve looked at his feet, not knowing what to say either.

“I suppose,” the President continued, “that I should start by apologising for giving you a job and not making you fully aware of the circumstances. I have to take responsibility for that.”

“It still wouldn’t have stopped me from falling in love with your son, ma’am,” Steve replied softly, raising his head to look her in the eye. He’d thought a lot about that over the last couple of days and he’d come to the conclusion that, even if he’d known about Rumlow and Pierce and the nightmares, he would have still ended up here. Because those things, however horrible, made Bucky the person he was today and that was the person Steve had fallen so crazy in love with.

President Barnes inclined her head slightly – another Bucky Barnes trait.

“Probably not,” she replied. “But I’m quite sure you would have acted on it a little differently if you’d known.” She sat up and set her coffee cup down gently, leaning forward. “Steven, my son means everything to me.”

“I know, ma’am.”

“Do you? Because I have to live every day with the fact that I sentenced him to three months of torture, for the reason that I could not trade his life for the lives of millions of others. I could have stopped it in a second but I had to let it carry on for the sake of the rest of the world. And I can never forgive myself for that. I am fiercely protective of him Rogers, but the only thing I want is for him to be safe and happy. Can you promise me that you can make him that?”

Steve blinked at her.

“I can promise that I will keep him safe and do everything I possibly can to make him happy,” he replied.

“Okay,” said the President.

“Okay?”

“Okay,” she repeated. “Just not as his personal security. You’ve lost that job I’m afraid – it’s gone to Phil Coulson.”

“Good,” said Steve with relief. “He said Coulson was the only person he’d trust with the job.”

President Barnes nodded slowly and said nothing for a long moment.

“You’ve not asked about your own job,” she said eventually.

“I assumed that I no longer had one, ma’am,” he replied truthfully.

She smiled.

“You still have one, but only pending a meeting with Nick Fury tomorrow morning. I’m not promising anything – you have to prove to him that you’re still competent and trustworthy.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Steve allowed himself a small smile, the knot in his stomach finally easing and uncoiling.

“Now, if you don’t mind I need to you take a trip to the residential wing – I have a son who has been moping about miserably for about forty hours and acting like a sullen child. I think he might need a little cheering up.

~

Bucky really had been seriously miserable. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to sigh dramatically, it hurt to lie down, to sit up, to do anything at all really. The cabin pressure during the flight back to DC made him almost pass out but he still refused to take a painkiller stronger than co-codamol. He had hated the morphine haze – it made him feel sick and brought back too many bad memories. Even though he was in agony now, this was better.

He had spent the rest of the time moping about on the couch with Aunt Helen, who had made the trip back with them for a few days. Bucky had been devastated to find that he had left his phone charger in the Hamptons and had been close to tears when nobody in the White House had been able to rustle up a replacement for him. It was worse than torture, not being able to hear Steve’s voice.

Bucky’s memories of the hospital were cloudy, but he remembered Steve. He remembered Steve pushing his hair back and holding his hand and kissing him softly on the head. He remembered Steve crying. He remembered Steve. And Steve was all he wanted right now, all he wanted ever.

His tried to occupy his mind with attempting to learn another language. Helen was curled up on the couch beside him, reading some novel in Italian and Bucky had a laptop on his knee and headphones on, trying to learn Mandarin Chinese. He was a sponge when it came to languages. The only two things he’d ever been good at were languages and shooting a rifle with a 98% accuracy rate.

He didn’t even notice anyone else was in the room until Aunt Helen hit him on the arm with her book.

“Ow!” he protested, whipping off his headphones. “What was that for?” Helen inclined her head and Bucky followed her eyes to the person standing in the middle of the living room. “STEVE!”

Bucky’s all but threw the laptop aside as he leapt from the couch and immediately regretted it as pain shot through his left side, doubling him over and knocking the breath from his lungs. Steve rushed forward and scooped Bucky upright, setting him back on his feet again.

“Easy, soldier,” he said gently. “No need to hurt yourself on my account.”

“Are you kidding me?” Bucky breathed, gripping Steve’s forearms tightly. “You’re totally worth the pain.”

Steve smiled and it was beautiful, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, warm and soothing and absolutely wonderful. Bucky felt himself smile back.

“I’m sorry, should I give you boys the room?” Aunt Helen asked from the couch.

Steve’s smile dissolved into giggles and Bucky followed him.

“No, Aunt Helen,” he replied, taking hold of Steve’s hand. “We’ll go somewhere else.”

“Well just let me know if I have to go for an hour’s walk or something, okay honey?”

“Will do, Aunt Helen.”

The short walk down the hall to his room was painful, but Steve still had tight hold of his hand and it gave him the strength to keep going. Once inside and the door safely closed, Bucky turned and wrapped his arms around Steve’s waist, his head resting on Steve’s shoulder, nose brushing his neck. He breathed in deeply and suddenly all the pain and anguish of the last few days was gone.

“You have no idea how much I missed you,” Bucky murmured against Steve’s skin and felt his strong hands rest gently on his hips.

“If it’s close to how much I missed you, then I might have an idea,” Steve replied. Bucky smiled.

“I wasn’t sure if I’d ever see you again. My phone ran out of battery and I left the charger at the Hamptons…”

“Oh, so that’s why you never answered my texts,” Steve chuckled. “You’re going to get flooded with them when you get power back.”

Bucky laughed and immediately winced as his broken ribs throbbed painfully.

“Do you think we could move to the bed?” he asked weakly. “This is actually starting to hurt a little.”

Steve let him go and allowed Bucky to lead him to the bed, kicking off his shoes to slide onto the mattress beside him. Bucky reached for his painkillers.

“Natasha said that you had a meeting with my mom today,” he said, popping the cap. “What did she say?”

Steve sighed and leaned back against the pillows, loosening off his tie and popping the top button of his shirt open.

“Well, I thought I was going to get murdered, but it turns out she was pretty mellow,” Steve replied. “She said that she just wants you to be happy.”

“Yeah?” Bucky smiled.

“Yeah.”

Bucky started to lean forward, attempting to go in for a kiss, but his ribs twinged again and he grimaced.

“Well, I’d be a lot happier if I didn’t have three cracked ribs but hey, that’s life!”

He popped one of the pills in his mouth and dry swallowed it as Steve sat up again and took the bottle from him.

“Tylenol? What are you, a six year old?”

“Shut up!” Bucky grinned at him, and then more seriously said, “I don’t like taking opiates.”

“I know,” Steve replied. Bucky glanced at him and Steve bit his lip. “I know about Rumlow.”

Bucky looked down at his feet, bare and almost hanging off the bottom of the bed because of how far forward he was sitting.

“Who told you?”

“Natasha.”

“Figures…”

Steve shuffled forward so that he was level with Bucky and slid an arm gently around his waist.

“I made her tell me,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t have really understood this whole thing otherwise.”

Bucky sighed heavily, his ribs hurting once again but a little less this time with the painkillers starting to kick in. This had not been the way that Bucky had wanted Steve to find out. Telling people about very important things was just not at all going his way this week.

“I really wanted to tell you myself,” he said quietly. “I was GOING to tell you myself…”

“I know,” Steve murmured, pressing a kiss to Bucky’s shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, if I ever came face to face with him, I’d kill him.”

Bucky let out a short, mirthless laugh.

“You’d have to fight me to get to him first.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll step back and help you bury the body when you’re done.”

He actually laughed at that, lifting his head to smile at Steve, who had his chin resting lightly on Bucky’s shoulder.

“There’s something else I wanted to tell you.”

“What’s that?” Steve asked gently.

“I love you.”

He’d been wanting to say that for a while, and when Steve’s face lit up with the most beautiful smile Bucky had ever seen, he felt like he was going to melt. Bucky bit his lip again and gave him a small smile, suddenly incredibly bashful.

“I love you too,” Steve murmured, his hand reaching up to cup Bucky’s face tenderly.

When Steve kissed him, Bucky really did melt, slowly sinking forward into Steve’s chest, ignoring the pain in his side as he wrapped his arms around Steve’s neck. It was slow and sweet, Steve’s hands in his hair as his tongue pressed firmly against Bucky’s. Warmth spread through him, radiating out from his chest and Bucky couldn’t suppress the laugh that bubbled up against Steve’s lips.

“Is this really happening, Steve?” he whispered happily.

“Yeah, I think it is,” Steve replied, grinning.

Bucky kissed him again.

“Do you think Aunt Helen would mind if we didn’t come out for dinner?”

“Probably not,” he said. “Does the White House do room service?”

“Oh yes,” Bucky murmured against Steve’s lips.

“Then how about we get naked and snuggle?”

“You know what, Stevie,” Bucky sighed blissfully. “You always know the right thing to say.”


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this makes up for the heartbreak of previous chapters!

Steve woke up happy. He didn’t even have to open his eyes to know that he was already happy, but the moment he did, the feeling increased tenfold, because Bucky’s head was on the pillow next to his, blue eyes soft in the murky light of dawn, and smiling.

“Hi,” Steve whispered.

“Hi,” Bucky murmured back.

They had spent their first full night together since before Bucky’s birthday and it had been perfect. They had slowly undressed each other, Steve being careful to ease Bucky out of his sweater and shirt, placing gentle kisses on the skin of his left side which was showing the deep purple of bruise over the fractured bones every time Bucky winced or hissed in discomfort.

Bucky was comfortable on his right side and so they lay facing each other, feet tangled together, fingers tracing soft patterns on skin and stroking gently as they kissed. Oh, and they kissed for hours, slow, soft and unhurried, occasionally sucking or biting delicately at a lip or a tongue before continuing, fingers entangling in hair or stroking over firm, toned shoulders.

They ordered pizza, which was left outside of the door by Aunt Helen for them to pick up at their leisure -they ate it in bed whilst watching M*A*S*H re-runs. Boomer came back from a long walk with Secret Service and curled up at the bottom of the bed for a couple of hours, asking to be let out again once Steve and Bucky started kissing again. Steve felt a little sorry for the dog, but not sorry enough that he’d stop putting his mouth on every inch of Bucky that he could get to.

Waking up to him was the most amazing feeling and Steve shuffled closer to Bucky, closing the small gap of bed between them and sliding his hand over Bucky’s left hip, leaning forward to kiss him lazily. Bucky gave a low groan deep in his chest as his tongue prised Steve’s mouth open and licked inside with long, languid strokes that made Steve inhale sharply. Bucky’s uninjured hand found its way into the short hair on Steve’s head and tugged him closer, breathing sharply through his nose as their kiss quickly deepened.

As the Steve’s belly started to tighten his cock rapidly hardened, he had completely forgotten about Bucky’s ribs until his hand moved up his back to tug him closer. Bucky hissed immediately.

“Ah…shit, that hurts,” Bucky gasped, mouth breaking away from Steve’s as he rolled over onto his back, covering his face with the arm clad in the plaster cast.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Steve replied guiltily. “I got a little carried away.”

Bucky laughed painfully, small huffs punctuated with gasps.

“My fault – I kinda set the pace.” He slid his arm back over his head and looked at Steve with a small, apologetic smile. “Does this mean no sex for, like, a month? Because I’m not sure I can deal with that.”

Steve laughed softly and curled up around Bucky’s right side, rubbing his stomach slowly in small circles.

“What? Is slow kissing and gentle heavy petting not good enough for you?”

Bucky grinned at him, covering Steve’s hand with his own.

“There’s only so much of that I can take before it’s just not enough anymore,” he replied. “Especially not around you!”

Steve grinned back and put his head in the space between Bucky’s shoulder and chest, listening to his breathing which was slightly laboured. He had to admit, if Bucky’s ribs hadn’t been hurting, Steve was absolutely ready to pull his boyfriend on top of him. He bit his lip, suddenly struck with an idea.

“You know, you could…” he trailed off, unsure.

He felt Bucky shift to look at him.

“I could what?” he asked quietly.

Steve took a deep breath and raised his eyes to look at him.

“You could always…top me?”

Bucky blinked slowly and then started to laugh. A light flush crept over Steve’s face and he looked away quickly. Bucky stopped laughing immediately.

“Oh my god…you’re serious,” he murmured.

“It was just a suggestion,” mumbled Steve, feeling a little stupid. “It was dumb…you don’t have to…”

“Shit, Steve. No, I…I didn’t mean to laugh! I…” Bucky’s injured hand nudged Steve’s face back up. “I thought you were kidding.”

Steve took a deep breath.

“It’s okay,” he replied meekly. “Its fine if you don’t want to…”

“I want to, you idiot,” Bucky said seriously. Steve sucked in a breath. “I want to, but…I mean…how many times have you done that?”

Steve bit his lip again.

“I guess, I can count on one hand,” he replied quietly.

“Shit,” breathed Bucky, his head falling back onto the pillow, bottom lip being gnawed on. After a second, he looked at Steve again. “I want to Steve, I just don’t want to end up hurting you.”

Steve pushed himself up on his elbow and smiled softly, telling Bucky the same thing he’d told Steve the first time they’d had sex.

“There is nothing you could do to me that I wouldn’t want you to do.”

He watched as Bucky’s eyes searched his face, looking for any sign that Steve was at all unsure about this, before eventually swallowing hard and whispering,

“Oh God, come here…”

~

They ended up with Steve supporting his weight on his hands and knees, the former beside Bucky’s ears and his hands resting beside Bucky’s thighs, while his cock was swallowed down expertly. Bucky’s right hand stroked soothingly over Steve’s skin – his thigh, his buttocks, his sides and his back, even reaching as far as the back of Steve’s neck before moving back down again. Steve bit his lip, desperately trying to quell the soft moans that he was making under Bucky’s attentions.

Bucky’s mouth was gorgeous heat, soft and wet and perfect as he had gently mouthed at the shaft, running his lips over the hardened flesh before running his tongue slowly up over the head. Steve had bit back a groan as Bucky’s lips had closed over the head and he had sucked softly, Steve’s cock inching in slowly until it had hit the back of Bucky’s throat and there it had stayed. Bucky’s nose was up against Steve’s balls, his head tilted back and his throat relaxed as he swallowed around the thick flesh gently, making these small, sweet noises that vibrated around Steve’s cock and drove him crazy. It was so good, so warm and wet and deep that it made Steve’s thighs tremble with want, and he actually whimpered when Bucky drew back and let Steve’s dick fall from his mouth wetly.

He didn’t feel the loss for very long though, as Bucky’s hand wrapped around the shaft and began to stoke it leisurely as he mouthed at the soft skin of the twin globes hanging between Steve’s legs, sucking them into his mouth one at a time, tongue massaging them slowly and Steve forced himself not to cry out.

He dropped to his elbows, still keeping his weight off Bucky’s body as he kissed the tops of Bucky’s thighs, doing his best to show him a little bit of attention but failed miserably as Bucky’s tongue began to lick back between the cleft of Steve’s behind and this time he couldn’t stop himself from crying out. His tongue was rough yet so gentle on Steve’s sensitive skin, lavishing him in long wet strokes from his balls, up and over his entrance.

Steve sucked in several deep breaths as his head fell forward to rest on Bucky’s thigh, rubbing his forehead back and forward across it as he groaned quietly. He’d never felt anything so amazing as the dual sensation of Bucky’s smooth palm running lightly over his cock, teamed with the rough warm tongue and the breath that instantly cooled his wet, heated skin.

He was pretty sure he whined when Bucky’s finger, slicked liberally with cool gel, breached him a few minutes later.

“Shhh…” Bucky murmured as he mouthed at the inside of Steve’s thighs. Steve panted and forced himself to relax around the intrusion, not so much painful or even uncomfortable as strangely unfamiliar.

Bucky went slowly, swallowing down Steve’s cock again as he worked him open, spending a long time with just the tip of one finger, moving inside of him and turning and moving back out, working gradually deeper and adding the occasional crook of his finger, either just inside of Steve or when he was deep, both movements eliciting a different type of cry from Steve’s mouth.

He’d given up completely on reciprocating, unable to concentrate on anything but the heat coiling in his belly as Bucky sucked at him softly, his fingers opening Steve up at a leisurely pace, leaving Steve with no option but to bunch his fists into the sheet and groan.

“Oh god, Bucky,” Steve gasped eventually, “You could make me come like this.”

Bucky hummed softly around the hard flesh in his mouth and then drew back again, allowing Steve’s cock to slap back into his belly.

“Yeah?” he murmured, fingers slowly twisting inside Steve and making him groan again. “I can do that.”

Steve huffed out a laugh against Bucky’s thigh.

“What? Finish me now when I’ve already some so far?”

“It’s a marathon Stevie, not a sprint,” Bucky said, teeth gently nipping at the fold just under Steve’s left buttock and making him gasp.

“Oh, and I thought I’d entered a riding competition,” he groaned.

“Nobody’s stopping you…”

Bucky crooked his fingers and Steve cried out, making the decision right then to move otherwise he would be coming all over Bucky’s chest in less than a minute.

He hissed at the loss of the warm, smooth fingers as they slid from his body. Steve’s knees protested as he moved, turning back around and placing a kiss on Bucky’s spit-slicked mouth as he settled down over his hips, sinking down slowly on Bucky’s hard cock.

His breath came in small huffs as he felt himself stretch easily, his body accommodating the thick flesh with no resistance. Bucky was looking at him, his eyes wide and pupils blown, mouth wet and red and open as he breathed sharply, running hands soothingly over Steve’s thighs. Steve could feel Bucky trembling under him as he bottomed out with a low moan and rocked forward and back experimentally.

God, but Steve hadn’t done this since he was about nineteen and this was about a million times better than he ever remembered. He was so full and it was so perfect because it was with Bucky, and Bucky was looking at him as though he were the centre of the universe and touching him as though Steve would break if he pressed too hard. He was so gentle, so beautiful and Steve had never been in love with anyone as much as this before in his whole life.

Steve leaned forward again, careful not to put any weight on Bucky’s front as his kissed him again, soft and almost chaste before sitting up and just letting himself go.

If he was being loud, he neither realised nor cared as he moved on his knees, his thighs doing all the work for them both. Bucky’s uninjured hand rubbed over Steve’s thigh, trailed over his cock and up through the trail of hair on Steve’s belly to his chest, while the fingers of the other hand, restricted by the plaster cast, knotted into his own hair. This was the quietest Bucky had ever been, only making the smallest of breathy moans whenever Steve moved a certain way.

He didn’t move fast, preferring instead the slow, undulating movement of his hips that made sure that Bucky was as deep inside of him as possible. His knees were starting to burn with the pressure but when he shifted slightly to ease them, he saw stars as he hit that sweet spot.

“Oh…FUCK!” Steve breathed, eyes rolling back in his head as he leaned back slightly on the next down stroke and hit it again. “Fuck…right there…right…oh god…”

Wordlessly, Bucky’s fingers encircled Steve’s dick again, exerting that perfect pressure with the twist at the head that he absolutely fucking loved as Steve brought himself to the brink on Bucky’s cock. His orgasm, when it happened, was slow like it had been simmering under the surface for a long time only to bubble over gently and wash through his belly and thighs and chest as he let out a shuddering groan and came all over Bucky’s hand and stomach.

His hips halted their movement as Steve gasped for breath and sagged forward, rolling forward and to the side to curl up in a panting ball next to Bucky who stroked Steve’s sweat-soaked hair back from his head.

“How are you doing, soldier?” Bucky murmured.

Steve looked at him blurrily, all soft eyes and smiles, a light sheen of sweat on his brow and upper lip.

“I’ll be okay,” he managed to say, chest still rising and falling far too fast.

Bucky laughed gently and kissed him on the forehead. Steve closed his eyes and swallowed hard as he tried to get his heart rate back down to the point where he wouldn’t pass out, and then he realised with a jolt that Bucky hadn’t finished. His eyes snapped back open.

“Oh god, I am so selfish!” he groaned, burying his face in the pillow to hide his shame. “I didn’t even think about getting you off!”

Bucky laughed again, a soft huff in the back of his throat so it wouldn’t put any unnecessary strain on his ribs.

“Ah, don’t worry about me.”

Steve propped himself up on his elbow and shook his head gently as he hovered over Bucky.

“Not a chance,” he murmured against Bucky’s lips. “If I get to have the world’s most outstanding orgasm then you have to have one too.”

Bucky grinned at him.

“What did you have in mind?”

Steve quirked one eyebrow and kissed Bucky once on the mouth before working down over his jaw, mouthing at the pulse point on Bucky’s neck, sucking gently at his throat. A contented sigh bubbled from Bucky’s chest as Steve continued down, lips lightly brushing the bruised skin over his left ribs and over Bucky’s flat stomach, sucking softly on his hipbone and kissing down to the base of his cock.

Steve took Bucky’s whole length into his mouth, semi-hard, and sucked gently until it grew firm once again, tasting himself on Bucky’s skin. Bucky groaned softly and slid his fingers into Steve’s hair, tugging lightly.

He flattened himself out on the bed, legs dangling over the edge as his hand searched over the covers for the bottle of lubricating gel that had been abandoned earlier. His other hand gently pushed up Bucky’s right leg, bending it at the knee so that his foot was resting on the mattress.

Steve slicked up his fingers as he continued to suckle gently at the head of Bucky’s cock, tongue swirling around it, delighting in the sweet light moans that Bucky was making. Steve heard him gasp as he pushed two fingers inside easily, Bucky being far more open and pliable than Steve had been, and immediately got to work, fingers moving fast, just the way Bucky liked it.

“Oh fuck, Steve…” he breathed, fingernails scraping along Steve’s scalp.

Steve hummed softly around him, head bobbing quickly up and down, cheeks hollowed as he sucked, mouth matching the pace of the fingers fucking into Bucky. They twisted and crooked and went deep, and Bucky’s moans got louder and high pitched. Steve felt Bucky tense, his fingers tighten in Steve’s hair and that was all the warning he got before Bucky came into his mouth with a choked shout, his thighs shaking.

He groaned as his tongue was painted with bitter-salt semen and he swallowed it down, his free hand squeezing up Bucky’s cock and milking every drop out of him before letting it fall from his mouth, and sliding his fingers free. Steve placed a tiny kiss on the head before sliding back up the bed, feeling monumentally proud of himself.

Bucky was breathing shallowly, his eyes lightly closed as Steve kissed him slowly, licking into his mouth and making sure that Bucky could taste himself on Steve’s tongue. Bucky sighed softly as he pulled away, stroking Steve’s hair back from his face and smiling.

“I love you, Stevie. You know that, right?”

Steve grinned at him.

“You know I love you too, right?” he replied.

“Yeah, I’m starting to believe it.”

“Good, because it’s true.”

Bucky chuckled and rolled over onto his back, running his hand over his face.

“Oh god, what time is it?”

Steve leaned over to look at his watch.

“A little after six-thirty,” he replied. “I have a meeting with Fury at ten…”

“Oh please, can we not ruin the moment by talking about Nick Fury?” Bucky laughed. “I am currently riding the high of endorphins and am pain free – I don’t want to spoil it.”

Steve leaned over and kissed him again.

“Let’s go back to sleep for a bit then.”

Bucky smiled and gathered Steve up into his right side.

“I can do that,” he whispered.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is it - the final chapter. I just want to say thank you to everyone for the overwhelming about of support I have received whilst writing this story. I appreciate every single one of you who read it, who gave me kudos, who reblogged it, who rec’d it, who sent me failing and incoherent comments on it. I had a little bit of a weep when I typed THE END because this wasn’t just ending a story to me - this was the end of seeing all my lovely readers. I’m going to seriously miss you all and I can only hope that I see your names appearing on any future stuff I may write. I hope the ending to The President’s Son is all you hoped for and I promise I will revisit the boys in one-shots. Thank you
> 
> -Amber xxx
> 
> (you can find me on tumblr at rocksaltandroll)

Steve was showered and dressed in his suit by 9.50am, standing in the President’s private living room and waiting for Natasha to collect him for his meeting with Fury. He hadn’t expected Natasha’s text that had woken him only half an hour earlier, but she had told him that she was going in with him as back up.

Bucky was sitting on the couch with Boomer’s head in his lap.

“It’ll be fine, Steve,” he said with a comforting smile. “If Nat is going in with you, she’ll fight tooth and nail to save your job.”

“Damn right I will,” Natasha replied as she walked in, stashing her cellphone in her pocket. “Come on, Rogers, or we’ll be late.”

“Good luck!” Bucky called after him.

Steve tried to breathe normally as he followed Natasha through the White House. He hoped that he wouldn’t lose his job, but the more he thought about it, the more he was sure that it wouldn’t be terrible if he did. There were lots of things that he could do instead, the top of his list was to go back to college and finish his education. As long as he had Bucky, it would be fine.

Fury was…well…furious.

“You are stupid!” he ranted at Steve as he paced back and forward behind his desk. “A stupid, reckless idiot! Do you have any idea of the damage you could have caused by over-stepping your boundaries, Rogers? It could have gone catastrophically wrong on about a hundred different levels, did you even stop to think about that?”

Steve looked at his feet.

“No sir,” he replied quietly.

“In Steve’s defence,” Natasha piped up from behind Steve’s left shoulder. “We left out a very crucial detail, which would have helped him make better decisions regarding the situation.”

Fury gave her a withering look but didn’t disagree. He paced back and forward some more before stopping and putting his hands flat on the desk, leaning forward.

“By all rights, you should be out, Rogers.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But,” Fury continued, “you are one of my best, and Natasha,” he glanced quickly at her, “has supplied me with information regarding her former relationship with James Barnes. So if she is still trusted to do her job, I can’t very well fire you for doing the same damn thing.”

Steve looked at Nat over his shoulder, gobsmacked. Natasha had risked an awful lot telling Fury about that, and all for Steve’s benefit. She kept looking straight ahead, back ram-rod straight.

“So…what does that mean, sir?”

“It means that you’re back on general security,” Fury replied quietly, “but on probation – three months, and don’t even think about putting a toe out of line!”

~

While Steve was in with Fury, his future with the White House being determined, Bucky had been summoned by the President herself. He moved slowly through the hallways, Boomer at his heels and Phil Coulson tailing him as he avoided the throng of people that hurried back and forth. Bucky liked Coulson – the man had been on the President’s security detail since she had been Governor of New York and therefore Bucky had known him several years. Coulson was loyal and dependable, but quiet and private. There was apparently a cellist in Portland that he had been dating long-distance for a few years, but Bucky had never heard anything more about the man’s personal life. If he was going to be honest, Coulson would always have been the best choice for Bucky’s personal Secret Service, but then he would never have met Steve if he’d had Coulson straight off. It was funny how life worked out.

Coulson waited outside for him and he knocked on the door of the Oval Office and went in, finding his mother leafing through some paperwork on the couch. They hadn’t really spoken since the morning that she had come back to the house in the Hamptons and caught Bucky and Steve going at it like rabbits. It had been awful and Bucky had been sure that she would never let him see Steve again – she was the President and she had the power to make that happen. It had already happened with Rumlow, who was currently locked away in some high-security government prison somewhere in Alaska that wasn’t supposed to exist. It was a better fate than the man had deserved, but still, he would never darken Bucky’s doorstep again.

She looked up as he entered and smiled warmly. Bucky sighed with relief and smiled back.

“Hi mom,” he said quietly.

“Hi sweetie,” she replied, setting the paperwork aside and standing up, walking forward to hug him gently. Bucky wrapped his arms around her back and squeezed. No matter what happened, no matter what was said between them, she was his mother and he loved her. Pulling back, she held him at arm’s length and looked him over. “How are you feeling?”

Bucky shrugged.

“Like I have three cracked ribs and a fractured arm,” he replied ruefully.

“Crashing an Aston Martin will do that to you, honey.”

He gave a small laugh and rubbed the back of his neck, moving away to sit down on the couch. The Oval Office couches were not the most comfortable damn things in the world.

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I guess I might have over-reacted.”

“Not as much as I did,” his mother admitted, sinking down next to him. She looked tired, like she hadn’t slept well in a few days. Bucky knew that feeling all too well. “Everything could have been handled so much better, and I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” Bucky replied. “It was supposed to be done here, like this – just the two of us talking about it like adults.”

His mother smiled at him.

“Well, we can talk now. You said on your birthday that you had ‘future stuff’ to discuss with me, so…go ahead.”

Bucky gave a small laugh, trying not to put too much pressure on his ribs as he did so.

“Well, I guess we’ve covered the first part pretty thoroughly,” he murmured. “But the second bit…I wanted to tell you that I’m leaving the army.”

President Barnes nodded slowly.

“I did expect that,” she acknowledged. “I take it that you have an idea of what you want to do next.”

“I was hoping that I could come work for you,” Bucky replied. “Maybe not you specifically, but I have a little political experience, I helped work with you on your campaign, I did political science, I’m great with languages and foreign policy. I was thinking, maybe….State Department?”

He bit his lip, looking at her hopefully. She took a deep breath.

“I’m not going to give you a free ride…”

“You never did,” he said – one thing about his mother is that she had always made him work for what he had. It made him appreciate it a lot more.

“…but I can get you an interview with the Secretary of State. It’s up to him whether or not he can use you, or if you’re right for the department, okay?”

“I understand,” Bucky replied with a grin. “Thanks mom.”

She laughed.

“Don’t thank me yet,” she said. “I need to talk to you about the press release.”

“Press release?”

“About your new relationship with your former Secret Service agent.”

“Oh,” Bucky murmured.

He’d forgotten that the White House would have to issue a statement to the press. His mother looked apologetic.

“We’ve got to get ahead of the rumour mill, sweetie,” she said. “We’ve already had a few reporters looking into Steve being with you when you were admitted to hospital and we’ve managed to put them off for now, but we need to get this out as soon as possible so it’s all handled in the right way.”

Bucky looked at the floor.

“Do I get time to warn Steve about it first?”

“We were going to put it out first thing tomorrow. If he has any objections or,” she lowered her voice, “if he wants to back out, he has until 9am tomorrow.”

Bucky nodded slowly. This was the worst thing about being the President’s son – your whole life was public domain. He could handle it, but he’d forgotten that Steve might not. Entering a relationship with James Buchanan Barnes put you under scrutiny, and not everyone wanted or needed that. Bucky hoped that Steve could hack it. He hoped with every fibre of his soul – they had been through too much for it to break down at this.

“Okay,” he said quietly.

His mother leaned forward and covered his uninjured hand with her own.

“I hope you get what you want, honey. I only ever want to see you happy. Lord knows you deserve it.”

He couldn’t help but smile.

“Thanks mom. I appreciate that.”

~

Steve walked out of Fury’s office and took a deep breath as Natasha closed the door behind them.

“What just happened in there?” he asked.

“You kept your job by the skin of your teeth,” Natasha replied, fishing her phone from her pocket and turning it on – it immediately started a tirade of beeping as she received all the messages and emails.

“I was sure, when I walked in there this morning that I was going to have to start job hunting again.”

“Well…” Nat said, her thumb scrolling quickly through her messages, “you owe me big time, Rogers. Nobody but me and Bucky knew about me and Bucky – I used that to throw you a lifeline, so you better appreciate it.”

“Oh I do,” Steve replied genuinely. “If there is anything I can do to repay you…”

Nat looked up from her phone, head cocked to the side, studying him for a second.

“Actually there is one thing you could do that would set you on your way.”

“What’s that?”

“Your friend Sam? Bucky drunkenly introduced us at his birthday party and we managed to talk for a few minutes. He seemed like a really nice guy.”

Steve raised his eyebrows.

“You want his number?”

“Actually, I want you to give him my number,” she said. “I’m putting the ball in his court. He has to decide if he can handle me.”

He laughed and grinned at her.

“I’m not sure anyone could handle you, Natasha.”

She grinned back.

“You’d be surprised.” She glanced back down at her phone. “And apparently, your boyfriend is waiting to hear your good news, or so Phil Coulson tells me. He’s on the terrace – I’ll take you.”

~

Bucky watched Boomer race across the lawns as he popped open the cap on his bottle of co-codamol and dry-swallowed one whole as he leaned on the wall for support. He felt like he hadn’t been outside for days and even the city air of Washington DC was better than being stuck indoors.

Somebody cleared their throat behind him and Bucky turned to find Steve standing just outide of the French doors, Coulson retreating back inside. Steve’s tie was loosened, top button undone and he was smiling. Bucky straightened up and rested back on the low wall.

“Hey!”

“Hey.”

“How did it go?”

“Well,” Steve said mildly. “Against all the odds, it looks like I still have a job.”

“That’s amazing!” Bucky replied with relief.

“Yeah,” agreed Steve with a smile. “Natasha saved my ass in there.”

“Really?”

Steve nodded. Bucky’s heart stuttered – Steve looked beautiful. His face was lightly flushed, his hair messy, like he’s been running his hand through it with nerves, and his expression one of relief and happiness, light and open. Bucky loved him so fucking much.

“I…er…have some news too,” he told Steve. “It’s not really ‘good’ news…but…”

“What is it?”

“The White House have to issue a statement to the press about us,” Bucky said, eyes cast down. “They are releasing it tomorrow morning, unless you change your mind before then.”

“Change my mind about what?”

“Me.”

Steve frowned at him, stepping forward.

“Bucky, why would I change my mind about you? I love you.”

Bucky couldn’t stop the smile that spread over his face or the warmth that flooded his heart.

“And I love you,” he murmured. “But I’m the son of the President, and from tomorrow morning people are going to be talking about you, taking your picture as you walk down the street. Not everybody can handle that.”

Steve closed the gap between them, hands sliding around Bucky’s waist and resting his forehead against his.

“I would walk through fire for you, James Buchanan Barnes. You are the strongest and bravest human being I have ever known, and I love you. And no amount of reporters or paparazzi, no Capitol Hill assholes, or the President herself will stop me from loving you. Get used to it.”

Bucky didn’t know if he wanted to laugh or cry and the resulting huff in response was a mixture of both. He’s never felt so happy in his entire life.

“What did I do right to deserve you, Steven Grant Rogers?” he replied softly, laying his uninjured hand on Steve’s chest.

“Well, I guess you’ve been through enough Hell for one lifetime.”

This time Bucky laughed properly, despite the jarring in his side and he lightly pushed Steve back.

“You’re such a punk!”

Steve grinned back at him.

“Jerk,” he replied fondly. They looked at each other, smiles refusing to fade.

“So what now, Captain America?”

Steve shrugged lightly.

“I don’t know. We’ve got about eighteen hours since we go official – you can always take me to dinner?”

Bucky leaned on the wall again and bit his lip gently.

“On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Buy me a drink first, Soldier.”

Steve’s smile was like the sun, bright and blinding and beautiful. He extended his hand and Bucky took it, their fingers linking together as Steve gently pulled him forward.

“I’d love to.”

~THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The gifset that inspired the ending: http://buckykisses.tumblr.com/post/87711804075

**Author's Note:**

> Rude author is rude - I neglected to tell you that the fic was inspired by this gifset: 
> 
> http://jibblyuniverse.tumblr.com/post/84493446674/your-job-is-to-protect-the-presidents-son-do-i


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